


Law & Order & Authori[tea]

by CalamityBean



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Actual Smut, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward tea-based flirtation, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Falling In Love, Female Friendship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Injuries, POV Multiple, Science dates, Slow Burn, Social Justice, Tallster background/implied at first, past Anna Strong/Abraham Woodhull, past Anna Strong/Selah Strong, suddenly dick jokes, the smut is here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-04-13 02:19:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 185,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4504110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalamityBean/pseuds/CalamityBean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna Strong is trying desperately to live up to her name as she juggles a struggling tea shop, a sort-of-ex who quite frankly needs to stop smiling at her like that, and a heap of debts. Edmund Hewlett is a newly-transplanted lawyer still finding his place in this new city. This is a story about new love, making peace with the past, and finding common ground between two strong-willed, opinionated people who are extremely different and yet perhaps, in the end, very much alike.</p><p>Because every ship needs—nay, DESERVES—a <strike>coffee</strike> tea shop modern AU. Will contain roughly 40% plot, 40% fluff, a splash of angst, occasional sexytimes, manifold heartfelt discussions about the natural sciences and sociopolitical philosophy, and more tea blends than you can shake a musket at.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Camellia v. Coffea

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write a silly little one-shot about tea, and I ended up with THIS. This is going to be long and character-driven -- basically my earnest attempt to translate characters whom I deeply love, and whose relationship I am deeply invested in, into the modern world while remaining as true to their canon characterization as possible.
> 
> The next two chapters are complete and will be forthcoming after some light editing. ALSO: This is my first fic ever, so I would seriously love to hear any and all feedback or reactions, as I'm honestly kinda nervous about posting. Thanks for reading!

 

**\--- _Camellia sinensis_ \---**

 

There was nothing remarkable about the first tea she made for him. An Assam and Ceylon blend, milk first, sweetened with honey rather than with sugar to impart that flowery depth and complexity that sugar lacked. It was nothing but predictable, so basic and unimaginative that she forgot about it within hours, and he was nothing but a distraction—something to be ushered out of the shop as quickly as possible so that she could get back to the disaster currently unfolding in the stockroom.

“Just—just a moment!” called Anna as she heard the faint tingle of the shop-door bell, announcing the entrance of—wonder of wonders—a customer. A welcome sound, ordinarily, but less so under the circumstances. Which was why, she was sure, she’d turned the sign to CLOSED. Had she forgotten to turn the sign? She must have forgotten to turn the sign; _wonderful, Anna, A+ for foresight, that was utterly in keeping with this entire day._

She’d arrived at her little tea shop only an hour before to find a leak in her ceiling—not more than a trickle, really, but positioned, of course, directly above the shelf containing her most expensive bricks of pu-erh. The hour since had flown by in a desperate attempt at salvage. Now, crouched in a puddle of amber-tinged water on the stockroom floor with the knees of her jeans soaked through and damp boxes stacked fortress-like around herself, she couldn’t help but wonder why she was, it seemed, so very good at losing things. She’d had a fiancé once, a bright-eyed and passionate fiancé with a winning smirk, but she’d lost him. Then she’d had a husband, and he’d been nothing like the fiancé, really, more given to somber smiles than to smirks, but he’d been hers—until she’d lost him, too. With him, she’d lost her financial security and half her friends and the ability to sleep through the night in a bed that was too wide, too cold, and gave her too much room to spread out her worries and pick over them one by one. These days, every missed payment and overdue bill brought her closer to losing the shop as well. Did she really need to lose her best tea, too?

The bell. Right. Can’t afford to lose a single customer when you’re losing everything else. Extricating one last box from beneath the drip, Anna turned weary eyes to the clock. 8:14 in the morning. 8:14, and already she was _very_ much done with this day.

Then she extricated herself from the tea-fortress, engaged in a brief and fruitless attempt to straighten her hair, and strode out front.

A lone customer stood some ways back from the counter, staring owlishly at the menu with his head canted nearly horizontally to one side.

“How may I help you?” she half-shouted, breathlessly and rather too forcefully, as she kicked the stockroom door shut behind herself. The man startled.

“Oh! Forgive me, madam, I didn’t . . . That is, I’ve never . . . and I thought . . .” She stared at him, expectant; he stared back, seeming rather perturbed. Then his gaze flicked back to the menus hung above her head. He leaned forward and squinted up disapprovingly from behind glasses with too-large frames. “That is to say, do you . . . serve any sort of _coffee_ here?”

 _This._ This, Anna was sorry to say, happened a lot.

Even though the name of her shop was Tea Manor.

Even though the sign said ‘Teas & Tisanes’ just below the name.

Even though every single drink on her menu was some variety of tea.

 _Even so,_ at least once a week, some disoriented coffee-zombie would stumble in thinking they’d found a café. The inevitable cycle of confusion, disappointment, and frustration had gotten a bit old.

She pressed her lips together and breathed in through her nose, because doing so helped repress the urge to snap. “I’m sorry, sir. This is a tea shop. I serve tea.”

“ _Ah_. I see.” He had a posh accent that made him sound rather haughty, an oddly raspy voice, and a very definitive way of saying _ah_. A way that told Anna that this conversation was not going to end in a sale—not for her, at least. “In that case, would you happen to know where I might—?”

“Teas can have just as much caffeine as coffee, you know,” she cut in, mouth moving quickly, mind more quickly still. Early middle-aged, wearing an immaculately tailored suit, Bluetooth stuck in his ear, dark hair styled short and neat, a wristwatch that could pay off her mortgage— _ergo_ , a businessman. A _high-powered_ businessman, at that. Finance? Law? Someone with a high-stress, high-energy workload, chiefly interested in his beverages not for the taste, of course, but for the _caffeine_. She moved around the counter as she spoke, setting the water to heat, making a mental catalogue of the best brews to offer. “In fact, by dry weight, tea contains _more_. Did you know that? But the theanine mellows it, so you’ll have the energy and focus, but no jitters. I’d recommend a black tea base, perhaps Nilgiri or Assam—which would you prefer?”

She snapped up a Sharpie and a to-go cup, poised herself to write, and smiled her most winning smile.

Mr. Businessman sent a concerned glance toward the door. Waiting, perhaps, for an opportune moment to flee.

Anna made his decision for him. “Assam it is. With Ceylon, I should think. You _must_ try my English breakfast blend, sir. It’s the house specialty. People come from all over the city for it.” While her mouth briskly lied, her hand marked the order on the cup.

Transfixed, it seemed, by his own good manners and by that simple line of Sharpie, the man swayed uneasily on the spot. “Please, that’s very kind of you, madam, but I really must be—”

“It won’t take more than a moment,” she assured him, still lying. Everything took more than a moment when you brewed teas from scratch. “How do you take it?”

“I _don’t_ —”

“Here, we’ll do a splash of milk, a dollop of honey—or would you prefer sugar? I don’t, normally. Honey is so much richer, more mellow. Don’t worry, sir. I may be American, but even I know the milk goes first.” She had her back to him by then, arranging her ingredients on the rear counter and scooping tea leaves from two of the dozens of little drawers built in to the back wall, but she sent him a warm smile over her shoulder all the same. To reassure him a bit, and, more to the point, to keep him bound up by reciprocal courtesy and thus unable to flee.

His wide, thin-lipped mouth had been open, another protest ready on his tongue—but, as she met his eyes, it snapped shut. And though it was difficult to tell in this light, Anna thought—but probably it was only the sunlight coming through the eastern window that cast that brush of color over his cheeks.

That froggish mouth pulled wider at the corners. Not exactly a smile, but a little too crooked to be a frown. When he did speak, it was with the air of a man waving a white flag in defeat. “I . . . Very well. I _am_ in rather a rush, and I’m afraid I’m not ordinarily much of a one for, ah, for tea, but—I suppose I can lift that embargo . . . just this once.”

Lucky him, English breakfast required only a few minutes to steep. After he paid, they lapsed into silence while she finished up, her thoughts trending back towards the leak-soaked pu-erh currently attempting to steep itself in her stockroom and he apparently content to frown contemplatively at all of her perfectly ordinary tables, chairs, and mirrors. The last item in particular seemed to fascinate him. The two main walls of the shop were entirely backed with mirrors, a handy trick to make a cramped, narrow space seem roomier. The wall in front of the counter was overlaid with various picture frames and other decorations to break up the mirrored surface; the wall behind the counter was largely taken up by her drawers of teas. When she turned back around with his steaming tea, she found him intently studying at the way his reflection was duplicated infinitely in each set of mirrors, showing him both from the front and the back on each wall. She had to clear her throat as she slid the drink over the counter to get his attention.

“Ah,” he said, a bit distractedly, “yes, thank you, Miss . . . ?”

“Mrs.,” Anna corrected out of habit, fought a wince, and plowed on. “Strong. Like your tea, I hope you’ll find.”

He had the grace not to grimace at her ‘joke.’ “I’m sure I will. Though I don’t know that any tea could take the place of my usual espresso.”

At that, she had to snort. “Oh, _espresso_. Everyone always goes on about espresso. It’s lovely, I suppose, if you don’t want more than a thimble-full to drink. And anyway.” She pointed at the cup in his hand. “Theanine. No jitters.”

His mouth pulled wide again. This time, the corners curled slightly into what she was _certain_ was truly a smile, and his eyes sparkled as though he were very pleased with what he was about to say. “Yes, well, I’m sure my, ah, my gamma- _Aminobutyric_ acid receptors will thank you for that. I fear I never give them enough to do.”

Anna’s face went blank. “Your what?”

His face went blank as well. And then white, and then red. “My—GABA receptors? You know. Activated by theanine! You—seemed to know your chemistry, so I—” He fumbled his drink a bit as he brought up his fancy wristwatch. “Forgive me, I really am _very_ late. Um, good day, Mrs. Strong . . .”

“Um. Likewise?” she ventured, and watched with a bit of concern as he spun on his heel and veritably careened out the door. The bell hanging from the handle chimed merrily in his wake.

For a few more seconds, she simply stood, arms folded across her chest, and stared. What a _strange_ man. With a very strange mouth. And cheekbones that had no business being that wide.

Then the scent of damp pu-erh startled her back into her crisis. With a brief detour to make certain the sign _was_ turned to CLOSED and the door _locked_ , she rushed back to the stockroom, losing herself in the moving of boxes, the frustrating reality of how much she would have to throw out.

By the time the plumber arrived to fix the leak, she had already forgotten the shape of the businessman’s glasses and exactly how she’d fixed his tea. It was weeks before she thought of him or his cheekbones again.

 

\---

 

There was a language to tea, if one was willing to learn it. A language and an art and a culture. As a child, she had been an impatient thing, never still, a creature of muddy overalls and bloody knees and the well-developed lungs needed to make herself heard over the voices of all those stupid, wonderful boys. Caleb, a maniac from the age of six, when he’d led them in a madcap adventure through the woods that had ended with their parents frantic and the local police combing the forest for a group of lost little kids; Ben, the peacekeeper more often than not, but just as brave and impulsive as Caleb when it came to doing what he believed was right. And Abe. There had been very little sitting still in Anna’s childhood, very little time for learning about quiet and secretive things . . . but she had been quiet, at times, with Abe.

But not until Selah and his somber smiles had she known the first thing about tea. If she had lost all the rest of him, at least she still had that: his knowledge, his patient instruction, and the shop that was, on paper at least, still his. Despite that he hadn’t set foot in it for more than a year.

Anna had learned how to be still by the time they married. She had been willing to learn. And now she spoke the language of tea with her tongue and with her hands, and there were things, nowadays, that could never be separated in her mind from certain blends, and ideas that instantly brought to mind a certain scent, and people linked inextricably to their signature drink of choice.

As most of her customers comprised a smallish group of loyal regulars, perhaps that last one wasn’t so surprising. It wasn’t everyone who had the palate or the patience for tea, much less appreciated it enough to want to sit in actual shop and wait for it to be brewed from actual leaves and flavored with actual herbs and oils and sit with the pot on their table while a tiny hourglass trickled sand down to the time when it had actually steeped as long as that particular blend was actually meant to. There were few enough people, in truth, who could name enough _types_ of tea to use up the fingers on more than one hand. But for those special few, her shop was a unique haven in a city overflowing with franchised cafés. They always came back. Some infrequently, some so regularly that she could have their tea waiting for them and just finished steeping by the time they appeared.

Privately, she thought of the days of the week in terms of her regulars’ drinks. Sunday was the elderly couple’s ginger tisane, Monday the med student’s masala chai, Tuesday the rooibos for the girl with the dreadlocks, et cetera. And then there were those customers who came in infrequently, unpredictably, but whom she associated with their teas so strongly that any time they came in became a that-kind-of day.

Today was a rooibos day—not usually one of her favorites, for reasons that had nothing to do with the tea or the dreadlocked girl and everything to do with the ineffable _yellowness_ that seemed to hang around her mind on this day every week. Tuesdays always felt faded and tired and old, yellowed with age, yellowed with grime, yellowed with an itching anxiety that left her energy low and made the interplay of the mirrors seem strange and stressful rather than fun and spacious, as she usually found it. Selah had left on a Tuesday, she thought, though she couldn’t remember for sure. Sometimes she wondered if she’d just gathered everything miserable in her life and lumped it all into the same day so that she only had to deal with those associations once a week.

But on _this_ Tuesday, Anna smiled as she clicked through the pages on her laptop, reviewing her accounts. Things had gotten hairy in the last few months; some payments had slipped, some phone calls been received from the bank, and then a very frightening letter that called itself a ‘Notice of Acceleration’ had found its way to her door, informing her that she had thirty days to pay up or face foreclosure. Lots of sleepless nights in her big, empty bed over that one. But Anna was _smart_ , that was one thing that Selah had never appreciated about her and Abe too often taken for granted; she may not have finished undergrad, but she had a head for numbers, for balances and figures and the careful juggling of costs and benefits that comes with the running of any business. And she knew, also, how to go without. So she’d shuffled some things around. Dug into the other debts Selah had left her saddled with, shifted some credit around, forsook some payments in order to attend to this one, and she was—she was now entirely confident—in good shape. The loss of the expensive, leak-soaked pu-erh might spell hairy days again in the near future, true, and the lesser debts she’d shuffled around would rear their ugly heads eventually, but every one of them paled in comparison to the importance of the mortgage on the shop. The shop was everything. They could take her apartment, they could take everything else she owned, but she _could not_ lose the shop.

She shouldn’t even think on it. Everything was going to turn out fine. Everything always turned out fine, one way or another. She folded her laptop with a snap and stashed it under the counter, thought she might put on some music, perhaps, while she waited for a customer to wander in. Not until she caught sight of her own face in the mirrors did she realize she was grinning ear to ear. Her smile was wide and shining, her hair, as ever, untamable, her eyes reflecting a hint of teal from her oversized sweater; she looked twenty years old again, back in the sunlit years long before Tuesdays had lost their charm.

It was a rooibos day—until it wasn’t. Until the bell chimed, and she looked to her side, and her heart stuttered to the cadence of _lapsang souchong_ as Abraham Woodhull walked through her door.

Abraham Woodhull was a sweet spike in her heart. Abraham Woodhull was wearing boots and a fashion scarf and a gray knit cap, from beneath which showed strands of sandy hair—had it grown out that much since she’d last seen him? Could it really have been that long a time? She couldn’t imagine how it could. And best of all, Abraham Woodhull was _smiling_ at her as he walked in, his gaze finding hers with the ease of long practice and one side of his mouth pulling up in a familiar, confident smirk that she found herself answering, as her heart pounded, with a challenging grin of her own.

Then, just as the door was about to close, a girl in a stylish, pale pink coat slipped in behind him, and Anna’s grin fell apart.

“Morning,” Abe called cheerily, as though nothing at all was wrong, as though nothing had changed since college, as though his _wife_ wasn’t slipping up beside him with her hand tucked into his elbow and a bright, innocent smile on her lovely face.

Anna took a breath. And another. And as long as she could force herself to remember to breathe, she could keep her voice even, keep it warm, keep a friendly smile on her lips and never look at Abe’s face for too long. “Abraham! Mary! It’s . . . been ages!”

“Well, we been pretty busy, haven’t we, Mary?”

“Turns out all the parenting books weren’t lying,” his wife agreed wryly, her voice soft and sweet and, as always, _careful_. Even now, there was still a tension strung between the three of them, a triangular weave of feather-light wires, but Mary had always been too . . . _polite_ , Anna thought, to acknowledge it. Or perhaps it was that Mary had decided that if she pretended as though the tension didn’t exist, then it—and the manifold reasons behind it—would simply vanish. “They call it ‘the terrible twos’ for a reason. But we’re muddling through. I’ve finally been able to go back to the firm, so that’s been nice.”

Mary’s outfit was chic and flattering, her makeup was light but expert, and her strawberry-blonde hair was, as usual, pinned up in an elaborate bun. No woman with a fussy child _and_ a full-time job had any right to look so pretty. Anna wondered what the Woodhulls’ nanny looked like.

She didn’t need to ask what they wanted. Mary never ordered anything but lemon verbena, and Abe was the entire reason she had always made a point of stocking lapsang souchong even though people rarely ordered it. The Woodhulls always took their drinks to-go. Anna hated that—tea wasn’t _meant_ to be served to-go—but the Woodhulls’ lives were _pretty busy_ , she supposed. “And you, Abe? Are you still at the firm as well?” Anna asked politely, mostly just to give them something to talk about as she turned her back and began pulling out draws of herbs and teas. In the strip of mirror that ran above the drawers, she glanced again at Abe’s casual dress—his jeans, his hoodie jacket—and knew the answer before he gave it.

“Nah. Gone back to school, gonna _really_ get all the way through it this time, I swear.” God, even in _reflection_ , his crooked smile was all too winning. As though dropping in and out of law school was something to be _proud_ of, as though it meant nothing at all that he had the freedom to _do_ a thing like that. “Grunt work’s all right, but doing grunt work for your own dad? Not so much. I’ll go back to the firm as a full-fledged lawyer, or I won’t go back at all.”

 _Don’t go back_ , she thought achingly, wishing she had the courage and the privacy to say it. _Stay reckless. Stay shiftless. Stay idealistic, stay rebellious, stay in all those Young Libertarian and Occupy groups I know you still do protests with. Stay with me_ .

But all she said, with something resembling her usual challenging grin, was, “Columbia took you back _again_? I reckon they still haven’t pinned you for the flagpole incident, hm?”

“ _No_. And you’ll not be calling in any anonymous tips!”

When they both chuckled (and Mary, too, her giggle an unfamiliar and unexpected note), she could almost pretend as though nothing had changed.

“Abe just doesn’t like wearing a suit.” Mary confided, inserting herself back into the conversation masterfully. “You _know_ Father’s going to fuss at you when he sees what you’re wearing, Abe.”

“I’m just dropping by, I won’t have enough _time_ to embarrass him in front of any clients. Anyway, he’d fuss even if I were in a top hat and tails.”

“Still, you should _try_ to—oh!” In the mirror, Anna saw Mary clutch at Abe’s arm. “We should get something for Mr. Hewlett while we’re here!”

Abe quirked his eyebrows in a way that seemed singularly skeptical and rather less than enthused. “Don’t think Hewlett even drinks tea, Mare.”

“Of course he does, he has to. He’s British. Anyway, I saw a cup on his desk the other day—a cup from _here_. I recognized Anna’s label on the sleeve,” she explained, speaking of Anna’s shop as though Anna weren’t standing three feet away.

Mary’s lemon verbena was nearly ready by then, its scent delicate and citrusy and floral—and thoroughly overpowered by the lapsang. The pine-smoked leaves made the entire shop smell like spiced, aged meat. For more than one reason, Anna was glad there weren’t any other customers in at the moment. It was a divisive thing, lapsang—you either loved it or hated it. For Abe’s sake, she’d tried to love it. But that _smell_ . . .

“—all right, fine,” Abe was saying as Anna turned back toward them. “Do you even know what he likes?”

Mary’s lips pursed in a way that said she did not.

Left to their own devices, Anna could see this quickly devolving into a Woodhull domestic dispute, which was even more uncomfortable than Woodhull domestic affection. “Perhaps,” she ventured, sealing the lid on Mary’s cup and sliding it over the counter, “this Mr. Hewlett might appreciate something simple—something classic. Earl Grey, maybe. Any half-civilized heathen likes Earl Grey.”

Anna wasn’t sure how to describe the look Mary gave her. Surprise? Gratitude? Surprised gratitude? The caution was still there, and the tension too, but Mary’s eyes seemed slightly warmer all of a sudden, her face a little more open. “You know, I think he would. _Classic_. Well, Edmund is nothing if not that, so he’s got to like it. Right?”

Sure. Of course. Probably? After all, Earl Grey _was_ a classic. But if Anna were forced to be honest, her motives had been _slightly_ ulterior. She had dozens of blends in her shop alone—how was she supposed to _guess_ what a total stranger might drink? A tasseographer she was not, thank you very much. No, the real reason was that, whereas the lapsang always had her crinkling her nose against that stench of beef jerky, there was no tea that smelled so lovely to Anna, so rich and soothing and redolent of golden summer eves, as Earl Grey. With Abe’s lapsang in his hands, she turned back to her drawers and selected her own special Earl Grey blend—a Darjeeling base that she infused with oil of bergamot herself and mixed with slivers of dried peel and rind. To the steeping tea, she added the teeniest splash of more bergamot, just for that extra kick of orange. Pearls of oil glistened on the shifting, ruby surface of the tea as the steam drifted upwards in humid swirls that brushed warmth and citrus over Anna’s waiting lips.

Her mouth, so often drawn and tight, relaxed into a soft-edged smile. Her eyes fell closed, her lids shutting out the images of the figures in the mirror. For a moment, she couldn’t even smell the lapsang at all.

Then Abe’s voice cut through her thoughts, saying something to Mary that she didn’t quite catch. Anna opened her eyes. Let the tea finish steeping, and poured.

“There we are.” Anna had a smile ready for Mary as she handed over the final drink. “I hope your friend enjoys it.”

Mary’s answering smile was small and genuine. “Thank you, Anna. I’m very sure he will.”

Anna continued to smile at her and resolutely did not look at Abraham, who was doing that thing again. The thing where he kept trying to catch her eye from over Mary’s shoulder, sending her sideways little half-glances and eyebrow raises askance, each and every look full of history and meaning.

They’d talked about the thing. Specifically, about how he needed not to do it anymore. Not around Mary.

Mary, her savior, who managed to hold a hot cup in each hand and still nudge Abe with an elbow to gently shepherd him toward the door. “Goodness, we’re going to be _so_ late. It was so _very_ nice to see you again, Anna!”

“Take care, Annie,” Abe called, winsome and casual and so horribly, carelessly cute. Damn him for that. Damn him for staying away for so long, and damn him for coming back. And damn him for adding, as he held the door for Mary to walk through—“See ya soon!”

Her heart didn’t know whether to flutter or to sink. Her mouth settled on a forcedly-enthused farewell, and her hands waited till the Woodhulls were thoroughly gone and the bell done ringing behind them to loosen their grip on the counter’s edge. One fingertip was resting in a little fairy ring of condensation left by Abe’s cup.

She brought the hand up to her nose and grimaced. Wood smoke and fire; it made her think of rank summer nights camped on city sidewalks with a hundred other unwashed protestors, of Abe at her side, etching slogans in Sharpie on a cardboard sign, of the salty taste of human skin. How Abe could drink that stuff, she’d never know.

It was a rooibos day, or had been. But the girl with the dreadlocks and the portfolio always tucked beneath one arm wouldn’t be in for several hours still. So Anna dimmed the lights in the empty shop and turned the door sign to CLOSED. Just for a little while, to give her a chance to scrub the scent of lapsang souchong from her skin. It _lingered_ , though, it worked its way into everything, her skin, her hair, the air in her lungs, and she supposed some people were simply like that: not to be ignored. Even when he tried to be inconspicuous, Abe had always been anything but.

Not to Anna, at least. To Anna, he had always been a blinding light.

Abraham Woodhull was a song stuck in the back of her head—a melody drifting just below her conscious mind that had been playing on infinite repeat for more years than she cared to number. There was comfort in that, sure. All she had to do was dip into her thoughts, and that tune would be waiting to resurface, familiar and warm and assured. But there was also distraction. The niggling ache of a loose tooth that just wouldn’t fall _out_. Abraham Woodhull was a tune she could hum by rote and one that, somehow, over years of falling in and out of its melody, losing the thread of the music and then picking it up again, had become so terribly exhausting to hum.

The soap, unscented, wasn’t doing it for her. She chucked it down into the sink, dithered for a moment with dripping hands, her palms cradling each other and the water from the faucet a steadily running hush—and her gaze fell on the pale amber bottle of bergamot.

After another few minutes or so, she turned all the lights back on and reversed the sign, ambivalent towards the idea of customers but knowing, _knowing_ that she couldn’t afford to turn any away. At least she could put on some music while she hung around the empty shop and reviewed her accounts. With another song playing outside her head, it was easier to ignore the one inside.

And at least, when thinking about her finances was too much, she could bring the back of her hand to her nose and sink into the scent of citrus summers, her anxiety and her longing melting, just for a moment, away.

 

**\--- _Coffea arabica_ \---**

 

It was treason in some people’s eyes, utter and flagrant treason to his English heritage, but there was simply no denying the evidence. It was spelled out plainly to see in the cadre of brown-stained mugs perpetually stacked around the edges of his desk and on any other flat surface he happened to encounter. The truth of the matter was this: Edmund Hewlett drank coffee.

Not _tea_ , as his American colleagues perpetually assumed, because oh yes, he was a Brit, right, _ergo_ , he _must_ love tea. What rubbish. How these outmoded stereotypes persisted, he couldn’t fathom. Had he come to America the year before expecting to see a six-shooter on every hip and a fashion culture consisting primarily of spray tans and clothing modeled off the American flag? Well, maybe he had a bit, and maybe he had even encountered one or two specimens that fit that description, but no immigrant could live in this city for more than a day and hold on to such mistaken clichés. If he’d told his American coworkers how the rest of the world imagined them, they would have thought the stereotypes too ridiculous to be believed. And yet, the tea.

Perhaps there was _some_ truth to the cliché. He’d been raised on the stuff, after all, but also on many other things that he no longer particularly cared for. Or that he had, by necessity, grown out of. When he was a child, he had spoken like a child, dreamt like a child, imagined a future for himself woven from starstuff and brushstrokes and science—a future that only a child could have believed in; but circumstances had changed by the time he became a man. His circumstances and his family’s both, and perforce, he had learned to set childish things aside. Now, the scent of steeping leaves and the warmth of china held between cupped hands were things that belonged to another place and to a time too far gone to ever recapture, and tea seemed meant solely for mellow, drizzly mornings spent perched on a window seat with a book in one’s lap and raindrops pattering on the sill.

In the life of a corporate securities lawyer, such mornings simply did not exist.

“What in heaven’s name is going on with the Meyers deposition? I needed that filed _yesterday_ , Mr. Eastin, if you please—” As he accepted a stack of paperwork from a harried paralegal with one hand, Edmund’s other hand automatically sought out the nearest mug on his desk. His nerves were dull and raw-edged without his morning cup, his cheeks feeling hollow and drawn. “Thank you, Ms. Kovac. Vis-à-vis the Jacobson merger, please have all pertinent documentation reviewed and on my desk by end of day.”

The day was hardly begun, yet already, the pristine, charmingly Old-World-esque halls of Whitehall, Inc. buzzed with activity: an ever-stirring hive of lawyers, paralegals, clerks, and interns flitting between offices, every one of them looking sleek in their pressed suits and perfectly coiffed hair even as they bustled about. Richard demanded nothing less than perfection from his employees—something Edmund had appreciated at once. The immaculate professionalism of the place was a not-insignificant part of the reason he’d been willing to relocate across an ocean to work with the other man. That, and the fact that Richard had brought him in as a senior partner—a position which had always eluded Edmund, never one for corporate politics, in Edinburgh.

Professionalism. Straightforwardness. Efficiency. Yes, even in the relatively short amount of time he’d been at Whitehall, Edmund had found much to appreciate about it.

His desk phone rang. Three beeps, so, a page from within the office. Hand on the phone, coffee halfway to his lips, Edmund checked the name on the display.

“Good morning, Richard,” he said briskly, and took a sip from the mug. Or _tried_. It was, he realized as he peered inside, _completely_ empty but for some dregs of murky water and grounds. Why, the _nerve_ of it.

“Edmund. Good morning,” came the familiar, gravelly voice of his business partner. “Have you had time to look over those forms for the foreclosure of that cannery?”

“You mustn’t worry yourself on that front, Richard, it’s well in hand. They’re utterly bankrupt and the terms of their mortgage are clear as day. You’ve more pressing matters, I’m sure.”

Though their entire firm specialized in corporate properties and securities—encompassing everything from incorporating new businesses and merging existing ones to managing the dissolution or reorganization of businesses that declared bankruptcy—Richard usually dealt more with the interpersonal side of things, such as the business lunches, the social calls with the judges and district attorney’s office, not to mention actually arguing the cases that made it to court, and left the intricate, thorny minutiae of contract law to Edmund. Richard was good at talking to people and preferred to take a wide view of things. Edmund found people a bit tedious and had the sort of mind better suited to a narrow view—to analyzing language and figures, picking out patterns and inconsistencies from amidst a mass of raw data, blocking out the messy context of things and precisely dissecting the details. It made, he rather thought, for a very effective and satisfying partnership.

“I know, I know. Just picking at scabs,” Richard admitted with that wry edge that seemed a Woodhullian genetic trait. Or perhaps an acquired one, something epigenetic, à la Lamarck, since Mary certainly kept pace with the men. “And to be entirely truthful, that’s not why I called. I need to ask a favor.”

Edmund was trying desperately to catch an intern’s eye, his empty mug held pointedly aloft. He’d have sworn the wretched children were purposely avoiding looking his way. Must he do _everything_. “Of course. How may I help you?”

“A sensitive case fell into my lap this morning.” Richard’s voice was lower than usual, his words slow and careful. Edmund waved his mug at an intern, received no acknowledgement, pursed his lips and continued to scan the floor for a likely errand boy. Or girl. He would not discriminate in that respect. “A run-of-the-mill foreclosure in most respects, except for certain . . . extenuating circumstances that make me think it would be for the best if—”

“Oh, your son’s just walked in,” Edmund interrupted, half to himself. From his desk, he had a clear line of sight through the full-length windows of his office to the front door, through which Abraham and Mary Woodhull had indeed just walked. It had been months since Edmund had seen young Abe; he hoped the young man didn’t attend his classes at Columbia dressed like that.

Silence, for a long moment, at the other end of the line. “What’s he doing?”

“Proceeding en route to your office, if I’ve assessed his trajectory correctly.” Abe and Mary’s paths had diverged, Abe striding briskly down the hall and out of Edmund’s sight, Mary weaving elegantly between desks as she zigzagged his way. The petite paralegal had a smile ready for everyone she passed and was carrying a thermal to-go cup in each hand.

The line crackled with Richard’s sigh. “We’ll speak more later, Edmund. In the meantime—don’t mention any of this to Abe. Or Mary.”

“Very well,” Edmund murmured, a bit nonplussed but willing to comply. Mary continued to come closer, her trajectory now trending definitively, he rather thought, toward his own office—and yes, she was definitely holding—he began to dare to hope—

“Until later, then,” he told Richard, and quickly replaced the phone in its cradle so that he could hurry around his desk and get the door for Mary before she attempted to shuffle her drinks around and open it herself. “ _Ah_ , Mrs. Woodhull,” he greeted, then turned an exaggerated frown in the direction of his clock. “Oh dear. Young lady, I do believe you are no less than thirteen minutes late. I should hope you have a very good excuse.”

“Wrangling a two-year-old. Wrangling my husband, who’s nearly as bad. And getting you this,” finished Mary, who was possibly clairvoyant and _certainly_ a saint, as she thrust one of the cups toward him. He took it with a smile.

“ _Thank_ you, dear girl. Immaculate timing, as ever.” He stepped aside to let her in, wandering back to stand alongside his desk. “Abraham’s back from school on holiday, I presume?” His unspoken question: _He hasn’t dropped out again, has he?_

“Just for the break. He really means to go through with it this time, Mr. Hewlett, I’m sure of it. Although . . . I suppose I won’t be _entirely_ at ease till he’s sitting for the bar. Even then, I suppose he could always change his mind mid-exam and just walk out.” She sighed, sipping at her own drink. “In whatever he decides to do, I only wish he would be steady.”

Edmund didn’t know precisely what to say to that. The Woodhulls were, on the whole, such a lovely family—the most charming family he’d ever had the pleasure of knowing, truly, and among the brightest redeeming qualities of this transatlantic adventure—but Abraham occasionally left him at a loss. Richard was a loyal friend and a shrewd businessman, Mary a sweet young woman with more steel in her than met the eye, but Abraham . . . Edmund had developed something of the same oddly paternal feelings for Abe as he had for Mary, but if Mary was the dutiful daughter who would have made any father proud, Abraham was the consummate prodigal son. Too restlessly intelligent to be content in one major or profession, too idealistic to accept any compromise, always disappearing for days at a time to march in some free-speech rally on the other side of New England or camp out on the sidewalks of This Street or That Street or whichever street disaffected young people were ‘occupying’ these days. Every new profession and cause Abe undertook seemed almost _calculated_ to raise Richard’s hackles. Yet Abe always wandered back home in the end.

“Abraham will . . . do what he believes is right, I’m certain. He always does.” That seemed a suitably reassuring thing to say. At last, he allowed himself a deep drink of his blessed coffee.

And it was a _very good thing_ that Mary was so caught up in what she was saying just then, because the effort required not to spit his mouthful of— _whatever_ this awful drink was—back into the cup left him frozen stiff, his mouth pulling flat and wide.

He forced himself to swallow. Then shuddered, very slightly, and waited for Mary to pause.

“Indeed,” he said into the first opportune silence, not entirely sure what he was agreeing with. His mouth tasted unpleasantly of wet grass, a floral bitterness, and . . . orange? Rather too much orange. “Ah. Mary. What . . . is this, precisely?”

“Oh, do you like it? It’s Earl Grey. We didn’t know what you liked, but the owner, well, she knows her teas, and she suggested it. What do you think?”

She was smiling at him, eager and open, and he could not . . . He could not disappoint her, not when she’d gone to such trouble on his sake. He could not throw her kindness back in her face. “It’s—excellent. Thank you.” He forced himself to take another sip and make a face that he was reasonably sure was a smile rather than a grimace. “You truly shouldn’t have.”

There was nothing, Edmund suspected, that gave Mary half so much satisfaction as a job well done. Or the illusion of one, anyway. She beamed. “Don’t be silly. Now I know what to get you when Abe and I stop by!” He tried very hard not to wince. Fortunately, Mary had already turned to look over her shoulder. “Speaking of which—I should probably see how he and Father are—”

The sound of a door slamming interrupted her, succeeded immediately by the sight of Abe storming back down the hallway. Edmund cringed minutely in sympathy as Mary muttered something that sounded like “oh for goodness’ sake” and scurried out after her husband.

Edmund dithered a moment, then collected himself, falling back on that tried and true advice from his favorite television show of his youth: Keep to the Prime Directive. _Don’t interfere_.

As soon as Mary was out of sight, he whirled around to the other side of his desk, where he kept the rubbish bin, and promptly chucked the cup and its _infernal infusion_ inside. As a precaution—just in case Mary should return—he shifted some papers around to make sure it was well concealed. She’d meant nothing but well, after all. And he was . . . pleased that she seemed to count him as a friend. He had known no one when he came to America, no one save Richard, and him only through correspondence via telephone and e-mail. Though his circle of coworkers, colleagues, and business acquaintances had grown rapidly in the months since, actual _friends_ were—a rarer breed. Belonging chiefly, perhaps even entirely, to the genus Woodhull.

And there was nothing wrong with that, honestly. Fewer attachments only meant that he had more attention to lavish on each one, and the idea of loneliness—of being unable to enjoy the company of one’s thoughts and appreciate the contemplative silence of solitude—was one of those childish things he had long since cast off.

Still, it was gratifying to see that his small coterie of possibly-friends seemed to value his company in return. He wouldn’t dare slight Mary for that.

Now though, with that taken care of: _coffee_. Hopefully there was still some left in the free-for-all that was the break-room kitchen. If not, he supposed he could always coerce an intern into fetching him Starbucks.

 

\---

 

The day passed swiftly, as busy days were wont to do; Edmund could scarcely remember a time when he had not been busy. Moments of stillness were interposed here and there. Mary had returned a few moments after Abe’s abrupt departure, leading her cooled-down husband by the arm; young Abraham had had the air of a fox with one paw in a trap. Edmund had spoken briefly with them, congratulated Abe on his return to school, and given the young man a suitably somber and paternalistic speech encouraging him to attend to his studies _seriously_ this time—all men must do their duty, especially those with a wife and small child looking to them for stability, et cetera, et cetera. Good, old-fashioned, fear-of-God sort of stuff. Much later, as the afternoon was winding toward evening, Mary had regaled Edmund with her plans for her annual Independence Day party. Though July was still months away, it was, apparently, quite the event and required thorough planning. She waved away his jokes about being a royalist spy and assured him that, Englishman or no, he was very much invited—indeed, _expected_ —to attend.

As usual, by the time the sun was near to set, all the young associates and junior partners had trickled out, and Mary had long since hugged Richard goodnight and headed home to her little family. Alone with the empty cubicles and the too-bright fluorescent lights, Edmund and Richard sat in the latter’s office, Richard retrieving a file from his cabinet and Edmund looking out the window at the setting sun. It would be well into the evening in Edinburgh by now. He kept forgetting to call Mother during the daytime, when she’d be awake. It pained him to think of her alone in the New Town house she’d shared with his father for so many years, no company now but for the cat and the nice young couple who lived next door, as she waited all day for a phone call that didn’t come.

“Here we are,” Richard said as he passed a file to Edmund, who shifted his mug of coffee (his sixth of the day, so a fairly conservative number, really) to his other hand to accept it. “There’s a brief on the first page.”

Edmund’s glasses were hanging from a cord around his neck; he settled them in place and set to work.

As he read, his frown deepened. The case Richard wanted him to look at seemed very much an ordinary matter. A bank that the firm represented was preparing to foreclose on the mortgage of a small business, the owner of which had missed three payments in succession. At the end of this pay period, if the debts remained unresolved, the bank would file to foreclose, and during the foreclosure, their firm would manage the redistribution of the small business’s securities—such as the real estate itself, et cetera—to buyers, as well as the transference of all titles and contracts. An unfortunate situation, yes, but with the economy the way it was, this sort of thing was positively quotidian, really, one of the mainstays of their firm. He and Richard both dealt with such cases every day.

Richard apparently shared Mary’s clairvoyance—another Lamarckian trait associated with genus Woodhull, perhaps—for as Edmund read, he explained, “It’s a straightforward matter, in most respects. A few complications, however, do exist. The first being that the man who holds the title to the business—and to the mortgage—disappeared quite some time ago. The collection agency’s attempts to locate him have thus far proven unsuccessful. In his absence, affairs have been managed by his wife.”

Edmund flipped through to the financial records. There—the name attached to the most recent payments, before the payments petered out entirely: Anna Strong. Something about that niggled at his memory, but then, Strong was by no means an uncommon name; it would be no wonder if he’d encountered someone by that name before. “It doesn’t seem to me that she’s ‘managing’ all too well.”

“Well enough, under the circumstances. The mortgage wasn’t the only debt her husband left her. Which brings me to the second complication.” The older man groaned softly as he settled into the chair behind his desk. For a man of his years, Richard was vigorous still, his face lined but eyes sharp, his hair steely but thick; but he had an old injury that pained him at times, particularly after a long day’s work. Rubbing absently at his shoulder, he continued:

“The bank is growing increasingly concerned about the amount which she—well, which her husband—owes on various properties, securities, and cards, and frankly alarmed by some of the recent activity in her accounts. They fear that she may be preparing to follow her husband’s lead—disappearing to join him wherever he’s been hiding, presumably, and leaving their lenders with nothing.”

“Shameful behavior,” Edmund muttered, still leafing through pages; finances, the terms of the mortgage, a summary of other outstanding debts. “But rather difficult to act upon before the fact—well, the pay period only lasts through the end of the week, so really one only has to wait, and—”

“Edmund.” Even for Richard, the word had a serious tone that brought Edmund’s eyes up. Richard’s elbows were on his desk, his chin on the backs of his hands, his fingers interlocked. His heavy eyebrows were riding low over his eyes. So, yes: clearly an example of the specimen _Woodhullius Ricardus_ in acute gravitas. “Edmund, I wanted to ask you to take a particular look at this case because there’s no one I trust more with such matters.”

Oh. Why, Edmund felt rather _flattered_.

“Oh, well,” he said. “Thank y—”

“This bank is an extremely important client. They _cannot_ lose the money they’ve invested on these loans if this Mrs. Strong decides to run away like her husband, and they are relying on _us_ to make certain that doesn’t happen. Do you understand?”

Edmund lowered his glasses, catching the end of one temple on his lower lip and dragging it down slightly as he contemplated Richard’s request. There seemed to him _undercurrents_ here, riptides and undertows he couldn’t quite make out. “What, precisely, are you asking me to do?”

Richard chuckled then, gruff and personable, and just like that, the gravitas broke. Edmund felt on solid ground again, secure.

“Just look it over, Edmund. _Closely_. Review all the contracts, all her financial records; look for anything suspicious, anything dishonest on her part or any loophole that could give the bank recourse. Anything that could be grounds for immediate acceleration. The bank is worried and they want to make sure they get their money back while they’ve still got a chance. You’re a stickler for details—I mean that in the very best way. If there’s anything funny going on, I’m sure you’ll find it.”

It would have been a lie to say that Edmund didn’t feel an odd little rush of pride at that—warm and bubbly, it made him sit up a little straighter in his chair, smile rather wider, tilt his chin up in that way he always seemed to do when he was feeling his most confident. But it was _good_ to hear such things from a friend, was all. _Gratifying_. To know that Richard thought as highly of him as he did of Richard, to know that his skills were appreciated, to know that there was value in what he did and that that value could be recognized by others.

Edmund would never be the sort of lawyer that pre-law freshman dreamt of being when they first set foot on campus, never practice the sort of law that the general public imagined lawyers as practicing, based on what they’d seen in overwrought films and in any one of the hundred courtroom dramas on the telly. He neither prosecuted vicious offenders nor defended wrongfully accused underdogs. Truth be told, he rarely set foot in a courtroom at all, and when he did, it was never into one built of polished oak with dozens of benches for spectators and a grim jury presiding; usually the room looked more like a conference room you’d find in any old office building, and the trial was mostly just the plaintiff and defendant sitting quietly while he, the judge, and the other attorney calmly hashed things out. To date, the number of impassioned closing speeches he’d delivered—as well as the number of excoriating cross-examinations—was a resounding zero. Perhaps lawyers such as those one might see on television _did_ exist, somewhere, but Edmund simply was not one.

His was the law of paper, of language, of carefully worded terms and precisely drawn-up agreements and the necessity to hold to every single letter of the law, with no care whatsoever for the spirit. The spirit was not his to interpret. The spirit relied principally upon emotions and personal convictions and all manner of other external factors which, in the end, had very little bearing on the cut and dry questions of _What is the law in question here?_ and _Has this law been violated?_ In the end, those were the only questions that mattered.

He would never be the eloquent, grandstanding Cicero, nor the impassioned advocate delivering the underdog defendant heroically from bondage through a single magnificent speech. He had his quiet, careful work, the sort that was at least as important as the grandstanding but better performed from behind a desk. He had his papers and his respect for the rule of law and his deep love for words and all their intricate shades of meaning. That was enough for him.

He closed the file in his hands.

“Well—” He smiled at his friend. “I shall certainly try.”

 

\---

 

That night, Edmund Hewlett took the longer route to the train station. He strolled through the park, lamp-lit, the treetops strung with golden orbs, and paused by the steps of the museum he kept meaning to visit, if only there ever seemed to be time. The dome of the museum observatory arced in smooth silhouette against the sky. The collection included a truly remarkable assembly of fossilized megafauna, according to the institution’s website, as well as an auditorium equipped with a massive van de Graaff generator where they did demonstrations a few times a day, but it was the observatory that Edmund most desperately wanted to see.

He carried his briefcase beneath his arm, filled with certain files that merited extra time in review, and though his route meandered, he did not pass by the little tea shop he’d wandered into quite by accident the week before. He didn’t even remember where it had been.

That night, Anna Strong closed up early. Not much chance there’d be anyone coming in anyway. She draped herself in scarves against the winter chill and huddled into her favorite peacoat, the trusty old teal one that she’d had for ages and that, after so many years with her, always smelled just faintly of bitter leaves, damp spices, and all the things that were really just synonyms for _home_. The wind was bracing, but the walk short, so she smiled into it; pushing away, for the length of the walk, at least, all of her worries, all of her fears, all of the new distractions and gnawing pangs of guilt that had stirred within her the moment the day turned to wood smoke and fire. Everything would be fine, though. She _had_ this. Every little thing would turn out fine.

She was curled up in a ball in Selah’s bed, pretending to sleep and failing badly at it, when Abe texted her a couple hours later. The screen of her phone lit up the room with pale, electric light. She swiped the screen, brought it closer to read his message; hesitated; then locked her phone and set it to silent. There was nothing Abe could want from her that couldn’t wait till morning.

Anna folded her hands beneath her cheek as she tried, yet again, to sleep, and smiled at the lingering scent of bergamot.


	2. The Battle of Whitehall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, part 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and for all the lovely support you’ve shown! This chapter is dedicated to y’all and to the em dash—my favorite and most egregiously overused punctuation mark.
> 
> Disclaimer: Ultimately, Turn is a show about political differences. In keeping with that spirit, various characters in this fic will express various conflicting opinions on (sometimes controversial) sociopolitical issues relevant to modern day America. The views expressed in this fic should always be taken as belonging only to the character who expresses them, as I personally may not agree or disagree with any of them.

One damp autumn day in the fall of first grade, when the leaves were beginning to crumble underfoot and the air smelled of cardamom and sweet rot, Caleb Brewster smuggled a pair of craft scissors to recess, snuck up behind Anna while she was pushing another girl on the swings, and clipped off half her pigtail in one fell snip. The ensuing fight ended with Anna kicking Caleb in the face hard enough to knock out his front tooth, which was all right by him since it’d been loose anyway, but also not all right because he swallowed it (along with quite a bit of blood), and how was the tooth fairy supposed to bring him any money if he’d swallowed it?!

In the end, Anna and Caleb were both grounded for two days, had to sit on the curb throughout recess for a week, and became lifelong friends. It was Anna’s first fight.

She fought in her first _battle_ almost fifteen years later, crushed hot and furious and terrified between dozens of other protesters with sirens ringing in her ears and no thought in her head except that she had to find Abe.

They had come to college, the two of them, and to the city with all its clamoring and diverse humanity, a pair of wild and restless creatures with hearts burning almost too hot to touch. Burning with anger at the state of the world, burning with the desire for change, burning—of course—with love for one another, and God, how incredible it had been to leave the bubble of their hometown behind and find the city already brimming with people who were just as furious and optimistic as they were.

Between classes and tests, they fought. Or did what they thought of as fighting. Scribbled slogans in Sharpie on cardboard signs, carried them aloft in marches, on street corners, carried them till the cardboard crinkled and rain bled marker down into the hollows of their wrists. Pride marches, fair wage pickets, vigils against police brutality, protests to counter other protests, on and on, there was so much injustice in the world and nothing, it seemed, to do about it except to drift through the streets with strangers and all be angry together.

It had all seemed so empowering.

It had all seemed so satisfying.

And if she were to be perfectly honest, it had all seemed, though she hated how juvenile it made them sound, like such a fun way to pass the time.

Until the night she met Abigail.

The protest had begun like any other. Candles, cardboard signs, intermittent, disorganized chanting. Abraham at her side, their breath misting into clouds in the late-autumn chill that mingled briefly in the space between their bodies before vanishing like ghosts. Their fingers loosely twining. But there had been a curfew on, and there had been police, eventually, and with them, friction—a mutter of raised voices that rippled into a shouted chant that Anna wasn’t certain she knew the words to, but she added her voice to it anyway, her eyes dazzled by the flames of a thousand candles and the flashing of blue and red lights.

She couldn’t really say which had happened first: the first arrest or the first thrown bottle. One had precipitated the other, surely, but in the days afterwards, some news outlets claimed it had gone down one way and others claimed another, and Anna herself hadn’t seen, couldn’t know. Her memory of that night transitioned sharply from stillness and the dry warmth of skin to the blinding, migraine-needling strobes of police lights—then again to sudden and forceful cacophony, a tumult of sound so overpowering it seemed a physical force battering her body from all sides—then to the crush of bodies against hers and the shredding hoarseness of her voice and she couldn’t feel Abe’s hand, she didn’t know where he was, where she was, she couldn’t find him couldn’t see him couldn’t _move_ —

Flames and sirens, car alarms and breaking glass, her muscles trembling with the pressure of all those conflicting urges and emotions. Run. Stay. Fight. Flee. Rage, guilt, fear, righteous fury, confusion, moral satisfaction and moral alarm as she stumbled alone past a storefront with its windows smashed and its alarm knifing shrieks into her ears—because she didn’t want to hurt _anyone_ , she wanted everyone to stand together and be one, but change was never easy, was it, change was never quiet or polite or still, and what was destruction of property when weighed against human life; but it was still _someone’s_ property, that storefront, maybe the only thing of real value they owned, her dad was a small business owner and she hated to think of that happening to his store for any reason because he _could not_ afford the damages and he didn’t deserve their anger and—and—all she really wanted was to find Abraham and _drag him home_ , back to the dorm where they could curl together in the close, lamp-lit bower of his bed.

He’d let go of her hand. Or she’d let go of his. She couldn’t remember which, couldn’t think clearly enough to decide whether it mattered, anyway. It was like the thrown bottle and the arrest—did it really matter which happened first, when the result was the same?

Just like it didn’t matter whether the person who’d shoved Anna to the ground as they barreled past had been a policeman, a fellow protestor, or simply some resident caught out on the street at a bad time. In any case, same result: knees slamming into concrete, palm scraping bloody over the pavement, a moment of breathless shock. Before hands wrapped beneath her arm, and someone helped pull her to her feet. A girl her own age with biceps like iron cords and a silk tignon wrapped around her head. A stranger. But by the end of the night, they were holding hands as they pushed through the crowd, arms linked for strength and solidarity, and though Abigail had looked as frightened as Anna had felt, together, they’d stood firm. Even after Anna had finally, _finally_ been able to slump into Abraham’s arms again, her nose pressed against the hot flesh of his neck and her lips tingling with the taste of sweat and smoke, Abigail had stayed at their side till the end.

That was also the night the three of them had met a tall, handsome man with bright blue eyes and a bruised nose dripping blood onto his perfectly bowed lips. Later, as dawn was breaking over the sign-littered street and the four of them were stumbling, weary and filthy and with voices hoarse, back toward their dorms and homes, he’d told her that he was planning on opening a tea shop, and she remembered thinking that that was the strangest and most lovely idea she’d ever heard, a tea shop. She’d twined her fingers between Abraham’s and listened quietly as Selah painted serene and alluring visions of his future life.

But she didn’t like to think of that.

The only thing she liked to remember about that night on those rare and restless occasions when she brushed her thumb over the pale patch of scar that still showed on her palm was how, despite how frightened she had felt and how small, she had survived. More than survived. Her childish fancies fallen away, she finally understood that what they were doing was not merely a way for two spoiled undergrads to make themselves feel better about their own discontent; the stakes were real, they were real and they were written in fire and blood, and the marches, the pickets, and the protests were not games. They were war. All of life was war. She could keep her head down and accept the way of the world and remain safe, or she could stand her ground, draw strength from those who stood with her, and fight.

She resolved always to fight.

 

\---

 

“You are smiling too much today, Miss Anna,” the customer said flatly, jabbing in Anna’s direction with the sieve end of her straw. “Miss Abigail, why is she smiling so much? It makes me nervous.”

“Makes me nervous, too, Mrs. Rios,” Abigail agreed with a slow, sly grin. Oh, lovely. _Ganging up_ was happening. How novel. From her perch behind the counter, where she was taking inventory of her additives for stocking, Anna rolled her eyes as Abby continued. “But heck if I know. Maybe you’ll have more luck prying it outta her than I have.”

Anna pursed her lips and lifted her chin. “Wild horses couldn’t drag it from me,” she said primly and ignored the sight of Abigail smirking at her in the mirror.

It was true that Anna was, perhaps, smiling a bit more than usual. A _bit_. The possible reasons for which were three.

Reason Number One: it was a Friday, and Friday was perhaps the most welcome, most relaxing day of the week. Not a very original choice, probably, but she lacked most people’s excuse of looking forward to the weekend; Anna was a small business owner with a struggling shop and one part-time employee, she didn’t _have_ weekends. But Fridays were yerba mate days, brewed for an eccentric older Argentinean woman who called the drink _cimarrón_ and Anna _Miss Anna_ , tipped consistently and well, and sometimes slipped free passes to the science museum where she worked into the tip box on the counter. That was nice enough, but to Anna, the best part of Mrs. Rios’s visits was making the mate itself.

Ritual was an important element to tea drinking in many cultures, if not one regularly observed in tiny urban shops like her own. Selah had always been particularly interested in that aspect of the business; he’d had the right sort of mind for ritual, serious and focused and with a great respect for doing things the proper way, and he’d had the right sort of hands, careful and elegant. Whenever they drank together in their apartment, he’d preserved tradition wherever he could—taking such great care in the way he scooped the matcha powder, for instance, as they sat on the floor with their knees underneath them, and in the way he poured, the way he served Anna as though she were some honored guest and not a girl he’d known since she was a teenager. Even down to the turn of his wrist, he’d been so strangely precise. In the shop, however, even the customers who had the leisure to sit while their pot brewed and savor it from an actual cup usually preferred to be more straightforward.

Mrs. Rios’s mate was an exception. Long trial-and-error had taught Anna the best temperature to heat the water to in order to prevent over-steeping, the best way to pack the yerba into the calabash gourd so that it remained a neat, compact mound when she poured in the water rather than collapsing and swirling up sediment, and the best way to slip the silver straw down along the side of the gourd so that the sieve at the end didn’t get clogged by the powdered leaves. The ritual quality of the process soothed her, made her feel comforted and supported by tradition when usually traditions seemed so stifling and so stale. But this—this almost alchemical infusing—wasn’t the sort of tradition that kept women subordinate to men or called for teaching intelligent design in science classes. It was simply _history_ , fascinating and inspiring. Mate as it had been prepared and presented and served for years beyond counting.

All right, so technically, the _bombilla_ straws she used were stainless steel, not alpacca silver. But who could tell the difference anyway? Nobody but Anna’s wallet, and _that_ needed all the help it could get.

On that note, Reason for Smiling Number Two: She’d made her mortgage payment. She was probably going to get screwed on some bills and credit card statements in the coming months, and God knew her credit score was so low it could probably be mistaken for her _weight_ by now, but she’d made the payment on the shop, and that was the only thing that mattered.

Reason Number Three: In a couple of hours, Abe was coming by.

Reason Three was sort of an odd one, maybe. She wasn’t ... entirely certain whether it counted at all, in fact, because she wasn’t entirely certain how she felt about it. Fluttery, a little. And nauseated. And, when she lingered over it, distantly sad, the same sort of sadness she felt whenever she remembered childhood summers spent playing in the woods before any of them were old enough to imagine anything much more complex in life than the question of whether Abe or Ben got to lead their expedition to the creek (and whether Anna was only _pretending_ to go along with their leadership until she was in position to launch a coup, and whether Caleb would hare off alone and make up his own game anyway). But on the other hand, even with the sadness lingering around the edges of her mind, she couldn’t seem to stop smiling whenever she reread his messages.

The first batch of texts had pinged on her phone about a half hour ago, around the time Mrs. Rios came in:

 **So thomas and i have played at least 3 dzn games of hide and seek today**  
**He is not tired of it**  
**He is going for the record**  
**Plz rescue me**

Abigail had been regaling Mrs. Rios with tales of her son’s romantic woes. Cicero was just now getting old enough to understand the concept of girls, but by the sound of things, the intricacies of courtship were still beyond him. Neither of the other women had noticed Anna turning away to type her answer.

 **You did this to yourself.**  
**Is Thomas winning? I bet he’s winning.**  
**You =\= a master of stealth.**

 **Um i am the stealthiest ok thx???**  
**National man of mystery, that’s me**

 **Oh bullshit Abe.**  
**If you were a spy, I bet you’d get your ass kicked like. Every day.**

**Untrue! I would be the greatest**

**No finesse. Couldn’t lie your way outta a wet bag.**  
**In constant peril of discovery.**

**I would literaly go down in history 4 my greatness**

Someday, perhaps, she would succeed in impressing upon Abe the fact that modern autocorrect technology had actually made it easier to be grammatically correct in texts than not to be. Evidently, that day still was not this day. The odd warmth that had filled her chest as she read his messages had probably been at least _partially_ annoyance, although it was always hard to tell with Abe.

 **Can i come by the shop?**  
**Aberdeen was out but shes back now, tomll be fine**  
**I miss you**

For a moment, Anna forgot to breathe.

Why did he have to—why couldn’t he just pretend. Why hadn’t they both gotten better by now, after years of being married to different people, at pretending that they had never been anything more than friends.

Not trusting herself to words, she’d simply replied: **:|**

 **No shenanigans! I miss ur glares / disapproval / the fact that youve been my best friend since we were like 5, jeez**  
**Come on, lets catch up**

**Abe Woodhull. You are 100% shenanigans.**

**Slander, libel and slander**  
**So**  
**Around 3?**

By two o’clock, Mrs. Rios would have finished her usual cup of mate and headed back to the museum. By two-thirty, Abigail would have headed home, because school was out for the break and Cicero could only spend half the day at Abby’s friend’s house, so she needed to go pick him up. By three, there would be no one in the shop but Anna.

**…bring me lunch. Something good.**

**Mmm yes i see thai in ur future**

**Atta boy**

For several long moments, she’d hesitated with her finger hovering over the keypad of her phone. At the base of her thumb showed a shimmer of scar. Then her fingers were moving, letters appearing on the screen as though on their own:

**I miss you, too.**

Anna hit send before she could think better of it and did not, _did not_ allow herself to dwell on all the ambiguous shades of that sentence and the memory of the rough skin of his hand in hers.

But she couldn’t stop herself from smiling.

“No matter,” Mrs. Rios continued, shifting her straw around carefully to get at the liquid without collapsing the leaves. “I’m sure you only look so pleased, Miss Anna, because you are so happy for your dear old friend,” here she sighed airily and waved a hand in the direction of herself, “who works so hard and so long for so little recognition—not unlike yourselves, sweet girls. But everything is falling into place now. Ask me why.”

“Why’s that, Mrs. Rios?” Abigail obliged, sharing a wry look with Anna.

“Because Mercedes Rios is the finest composer of grant proposals this city has ever seen,” the older woman declared, draining the dregs of her drink. “The curator has approved funding for my new exhibit. It is about black holes and the vast, dark emptiness of space, so it is certain to either delight the children or give them nightmares. Either result, I will consider a success. Of course, you will both come to the grand opening, sweet girls, I insist. Then Miss Anna will _truly_ have a thing to smile about.”

Not that Anna didn’t enjoy the museum, with its endless galleries of glittering geodes and the gigantic orbs that crackled with lightning and cannon-shot thunder, but the last grand opening had been—a bit much. Rather more formal than expected with few kids and few ordinary folks like herself in attendance, it had mostly consisted of wealthy patrons and ‘friends of the museum’ sizing each other up while she hugged the wall clutching a stem of wine. Fortunately, Abigail was there to cover for Anna’s conflicted silence; unfortunately, she chose to do so by warmly promising, “We’ll be there,” pretending to be completely oblivious to Anna’s imploring gaze.

But as soon as Mrs. Rios was out the door, Abigail pointed her finger at her boss. “Don’t you make those pouty eyes at me, girl, not when I’m trying so hard to breathe some life back into your social calendar’s empty husk. It wouldn’t kill you to get out more.”

“Buy a small business, Abby. Then tell me how much time you have for getting out more.” To that, Abigail said nothing, just gave one of her characteristic small smiles and shrugs. People took Abby for shy at first, generally, quiet and retiring and not given to confrontation, but that was only because they hadn’t suffered her friendship long enough to discover how much sly snark lay just below the surface.

Today, however, the soft edge to Abby’s smiles seemed more pronounced, her banter less sharp. Distracted, maybe. Anna set her pen down atop her list and watched as her friend began clearing Mrs. Rios’s dishes from the table. “Something on your mind?”

Abigail’s hand stilled momentarily, her dark skin warmed with reflection from the lacquered red hull of the calabash gourd, but it was only a moment’s waver before she was busy again. Nor did she ever turn her face toward Anna’s. “Not really. Probably nothing more interesting than whatever’s on yours.”

“Abby ...”

“Anna.”

“Is it Cicero? What’s he done now?”

“Oh my God, Anna, I know you have a hard time imagining life with kids, but my entire existence does not revolve around Cicero!” Abigail laughed as she slipped the dishes into the soaking sink. Her smile seemed half-hearted, however, and she still avoided Anna’s gaze in favor of glancing around the shop, empty with the post-lunch lull. Anna had to exaggeratedly cross her arms and tap her foot to get her attention—and stilled her foot immediately when she saw Abby’s face. Her lips were pressed thin, her brows drawn, her gaze uneasy and more closed-off than Anna had seen for years. A cold drop of doubt settled in Anna’s stomach and spread when Abigail said, “Promise you won’t be mad.”

After a glance at the door to make certain there were no customers approaching, Anna stepped forward, took Abigail’s hands in her own, and looked her gravely in the eye. “Abigail. As long as you haven’t taken that really expensive shipment of Russian chifir’ into the alley out back and burned it, I think I can find it in my heart to forgive you.”

“I’ve got an interview for another job.”

Anna’s hands certainly did not tighten ever so slightly, because she was a good friend and the proper response from a good friend was to smile. So she did.

“Down in Philly, when I go to visit my parents next week.”

Anna’s smile certainly did not feel in danger of fracturing into a thousand brittle pieces at the thought of _Philadelphia_ and _That’s so far_ and _No, please, don’t leave me alone_.

Abigail was the only one left. The only one left from that candlelit riot, the only one left from before the tea shop, the only one left from a whole host of befores: before Selah was there, before he wasn’t, before she dropped out of college, before Thomas Woodhull died and before that horrible, uncomfortable funeral where she leaned her cheek against Abe’s shoulder throughout the drive to the cemetery and then politely hung two steps back as Abe comforted Thomas’s terribly young, terribly pretty, red-haired and red-nosed fiancée with gentle hugs and soothing words.

Thomas was dead, Ben perennially deployed overseas, Caleb impossible to pin down for more than a season, always flitting from here to there and subsisting, as far as she could tell, on odd jobs and luck. Selah was never coming back, she just had to accept that by now; and Abe ...

Abe was intangible, a familiar and alluring melody that drifted in and out of her life with no regard for whether she wanted to hear it and that slipped between her fingers whenever she tried to hold too tight. Abe didn’t count.

Anna felt as though she might crack at any moment, but Abigail was still speaking, her voice low and rushed in her hurry to explain.

“It’s not that I don’t like working here, Anna, or being near you, but this thing—a friend set up the interview for me, and it’s nothing glamorous, but the pay’s real good. I don’t even know how _I_ feel about it. I hate to think of you trying to run this place on your own; you can’t, you know, you’re my hero but even you—”

“If the interview goes well, you should go for it,” Anna said firmly, forcing down the chill of loss and the brief, ugly twist of betrayal. As she’d always tried to remind Selah, he of the somber silences but hot temper, you couldn’t always help what emotions you felt, but that didn’t mean you had to listen to them. No: this was good. This was good for Abigail, and that was all that mattered. “That’s wonderful, Abby. It’s so exciting, really. Your parents will love having you closer by, and it do Cicero good to see them more. I—I hope it works out.”

Abigail pressed her lips together in a gentle frown. “If you’re going to cry, I’d rather you do it now, while we’ve got the mop handy.” She tilted her head towards the mop in the corner. That wrung from Anna a tired smile.

“Nonsense. You’ve got to do what’s best for you, Abigail, that’s all any of us can do. Don’t you worry about me.” She hesitated, then admitted, “I’d miss you, is all.”

Abby pulled her hands away, but only so that she could gather Anna up into a tight hug. “There’s this crazy new invention,” she whispered in Anna’s ear as Anna pressed her forehead into the other woman’s shoulder, squeezing her eyes tight. “Called Skype. I’ll introduce you sometime.”

“ _Snarky_.”

“ _Sappy_. Which one of us is s’posed to be strong?”

In unison, they drew back and stuck out their tongues at one another, reducing them both to halfhearted, exhausted chuckles.

“Shit. I have to go get the kid, hon. Chin up, all right? I didn’t mean to kill your good mood.”

From behind herself, Anna heard the bell above the door jangled, announcing an arrival. Still too early to be Abe, by her reckoning, so it could only be a customer. Thank goodness her back was turned so she had a moment to brush her cheeks and arrange her smile into something more natural as Abigail gathered her things. By the time Anna had collected herself enough to turn around with a bright and cheery greeting at the ready, Abigail was moving around the counter and heading toward the door.

A primly dressed woman held the door for Abigail, then approached the counter in brisk, heel-clicking steps. Before Anna could ask her what she’d like to drink, said, “Anna Strong?”

Anna’s mouth snapped momentarily shut. “... Yes?”

And the woman held out the paper that ended Anna’s life.

 

\---

 

“I don’t understand,” she choked into the phone, feeling, with every word, that she had to push her voice through a cord being pulled ever tighter around her throat. “I don’t—please, just— _I paid_! I paid, I have the statements, I can—”

The representative from the bank had a soothing, even voice and a clear, calm way of speaking that spoke of too many years of practice at dealing with panicked patrons. Considered individually, Anna understood every word. But when she strung them all together, they stopped making any sort of sense.

She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed a shaking palm against the pounding in her forehead. The lights off and the door locked, the shop empty but for the pounding in her skull, she sat hunkered behind the counter as though in a fortress, but even at the most violent, out-of-control rally, she had never felt less safe. A deep, shuddering breath, then she was jumping in as the bank rep finally paused. “Yes, yes, I heard you the first time, I just still don’t—” She could not cry on the phone with this person. She _could not_. Her head felt as though it were going to split down the middle and shatter her straight down to her heart.

“ _How_?” Her voice was thick and clotted. “How can you _do this_ to me, I _paid_!”

A sigh rattled over the line, and the representative launched dully into the same spiel. Anna picked anxiously at her braid as she tried to understand. Something about the way she’d managed her funds, juggled credit between her various loans. Something about a, a technicality, some minute legalese in the terms of her mortgage or the terms of one of her other loans or _something_ that even the _bank_ hadn’t noticed at first, it was such an obscure, difficult-to-parse bit of contract minutiae, that made it illegal to manage her loans the way she had—invalidating a transfer which made her short on her payment which meant that _now_ —

The paper lay discarded near her feet, crinkled with a sharp starburst of creases from where she’d clenched it so tightly in her hand. Complaint for Foreclosure. And a summons to court.

They were taking her shop. They were taking the only thing she had left, and she couldn’t think of a single way to stop them.

“—within thirty days,” the rep was saying. “You may choose not to file a response, in which event, you will automatically lose the case, and your property will go to auction.” Auction. The word echoed within her, all broad, hollow vowels. Either the court or our lawyers will be contacting you soon with further information.”

Her eyes slid back to the paper. She’d skimmed over it too frantically and in too much horror to really read, but there had been contact information at the bottom, she remembered. For the bank. And for their legal team.

“Your lawyers,” she repeated emptily. With the heel of one boot, she pinned down one corner of the paper and dragged it slowly toward herself. “The ones who found—this ‘error.’ In my accounts.”

“I can’t discuss that matter any further with you, Mrs. Strong. I truly do sympathize with your situation, but—”

Anna hung up without a word. The hand holding her phone she lowered to her side, letting it thunk to the tiled floor. The other hand held the letter so tightly that the paper trembled like a leaf.

There, at the bottom of the letterhead, printed in one of those beautiful, old-style serif typefaces that instantly made any text look a dozen times more respectable and serious:

_Whitehall, Inc._

It was a strange, intoxicating sensation, the slow shift from anguish to rage.

Fuck denial; she’d gotten through that. Fuck depression, too, and bargaining and acceptance; what good had they ever done her, what good would it ever do anybody just to sink down and accept that life was cruel and capricious and thought _nothing_ of ripping your heart straight from your chest and throwing it away? _Anger_ , _anger_ was the only sensible response in the whole set. She should have learned that in the riot years ago. Her hand ceased trembling and began to clench. And behind the cage of her ribs, her heart still pounded as rapidly as it had ever since she’d first touched that letter, but it no longer sounded like the fearful patter of running feat. Now, it sounded like a drum.

_Get a hold of yourself. Stand up._

_Fight._

One hand found the counter and hauled her to her feet. Keys, phone, coat; that _paper_ crumpled into a ball and crammed into one pocket; and she was barreling out the door, not even remembering to lock up behind herself as she broke into a run.

The wintry air froze her throat, burned her lungs raw, but she didn’t slow, her boots splashing through puddles and crunching through shallow crusts of snow as she charged around passersby without even really seeing them. Not until her phone buzzed in her pocket, the familiar text tone pinging through her haze of rage, did she slow just enough to fumble it out of her pocket.

 **So the thai place closed down, who saw that coming right**  
**Getting chines instead**  
**I mean same diff amirite**

Her thumb was on the call button before she could stop herself.

“Hey you.” Abe’s voice was light and even and she could hear the smile edging it. “Okay, if you’re not into the Chinese, I think there’s a pizza place on the way, too, so we can do that. Hafta get, like, one apiece, though, or I’ll starve. Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you could destroy a pepperoni in college.”

And that did it, that right there. The smile in his voice and the automatic flutter of warmth she felt hearing it finally pushed over the edge, and she began, without warning, to sob.

“Oh my God. Anna? Are you okay? Anna, come on, talk to me, sweetheart, what’s—I didn’t mean it in a bad way or anything, I just, okay, no pizza, _I can find us Thai_ , just, oh my God, Anna. Anna, please, what’s wrong.”

People were looking at her. They were doing it in the subtly askance way that urbanites use to rubberneck while maintaining the appearance of cool disinterest, but she was wise to their tricks; they would never say anything, but they were _all_ looking at her. Swallowing another sob, she choked into the phone, “Did you know?” Her voice came out manic and thick. “Did Mary know?”

“What are you talking about? Babe, please—”

Background noise, a shuffling sound, the hush of indecipherable voices. Anna stumbled her way around a corner and ducked her head and plowed onward.

“Okay, I’m—Anna, I’m coming to the shop. I’ll be there in like ten minutes, just, just hang tight, yeah? Anna, can you hear—”

“I have to go,” she interrupted, and was taken aback, in some distant part of her mind, by the sound of her own voice. So rough, so hollow, so flat, as though it was a pool too shallow to register any emotion. Unable to wait for his response, she switched her phone to silent and looked up—up—up at the building before her.

At the grand, looming office tower with its windows all glaring in the sun.

Inside, she ignored the receptionist in the lobby, made straight for the elevators. Heaven only knew the last time she’d been here—years and years, to be sure—but little about the building had changed. She still remembered which floor to press without even consulting the guide. The brass sides of the elevator car threw her image back at her in gauzy gold. As the car glided smoothly upward, she wiped her nose on her sleeve, rubbed away the wetness from her eyes even though there was nothing she could do about the redness that was sure to linger.

Tenth floor. She tried to remember to breathe.

Fifteenth.

Twentieth.

 _Breathe_.

 _Ding_.

The doors slid open to reveal a stark, pristine wall of glass emblazoned with the Whitehall logo, beyond which she could see a maze of cubicles manned by sharp men and women in six-hundred-dollar suits.

There was a stain on the collar of her sweater where she’d spilled masala chai on herself once and not washed it out in time. A large button was missing from the cuff of her coat. She wavered in the elevator, conscious of the slush on her boots, the mud she’d probably tracked across the lobby downstairs, then set her mouth grimly and strode out.

“Good afternoon, how may I help you?” chirped a young, cheerful receptionist who went thoroughly ignored. People were looking at her again, but she didn’t have to look at them; she didn’t owe them that. She didn’t owe these people anything. Corner office, that was all she cared about, straight back to the corner office, down the hall, past the break room and around this corner and—

Nearly on top of a petite, fine-featured redhead, who stumbled backward into the wall.

Mary blinked at her as though Anna might vanish into thin air if she just blinked long enough, opening and closing her mouth several times before she regained the power of speech. “What are—what are you _doing_ here?”

“Visiting an old friend.” Anna began to push past, but tiny hands seized her arm, fingers digging in harder than she would ever have expected.

“ _No!_ ” Mary’s voice was a hushed, frantic hiss, shrill with outrage and anger and ... fear. Thin, brittle fear. “ _No_ , you aren’t supposed to _be_ here, this is _my_ place, how—how _dare_ you just barge in here and—and—”

The expression on Mary’s face made Anna think of a porcelain teacup fractured by a web of tiny, infinite cracks. She wondered how much more pressure it would take to shatter the girl utterly and break her down into whatever it was that truly lay at her core, behind all the polished manners and the willful blindness. Somehow, Anna suspected—or maybe feared—that if they each could see the other stripped down to that, they’d have found they had more in common than not.

The thought left a dull pressure in her stomach, a sadness that had nothing to do with her crisis of the moment. Gently, she pried Mary’s fingers from her arm. “This has nothing to do with you,” she murmured lowly, meeting the younger woman’s eyes with sincerity that she hoped Mary could read. Mary frowned back at her, her eyes red-rimmed blue. “It has nothing to do with Abe. Forget I’m even here.”

And, after a brief squeeze of Mary’s hand, she walked the last few yards to Richard Woodhull’s office and let herself inside.

He was sitting behind his desk, his jowly face scrunched up in that too-familiar scowl as he read something on his computer screen—but he looked up when Anna opened the door. His eyebrows rose, but he said nothing. She closed the door behind herself. His eyebrows rose higher. With careful poise, she stepped around to the cushioned chair set up at an angle to his desk and lowered herself into the seat, protecting hard, steely calm as though her life depended upon it, because in a very real way, it did.

Richard leaned back in his chair. “Why, Mrs. Strong. Long time, no see.”

He hadn’t once called her ‘Anna’ since she'd married Selah. What, did he think she was going to forget who her husband was if she didn’t get constant reminding? Or did he just still get a kick out of twisting that same old knife, the one about how Mary’s last name was Woodhull and Anna’s wasn’t? She tilted her chin up and looked levelly at the man who’d once been her father’s closest friend. “Richard. I wonder what you might be able to tell me about this.”

She smoothed the crumpled foreclosure notice out on the desk and slid it across the wooden surface. He didn’t even deign to pick it up, just leaned forward a bit and peered at it from a couple feet away.

Her hands twisted in her lap as he read, but she kept them wedged low between her knees all the while because like hell was she going to let him see. “Mrs. Strong,” he said at last, voice a low, gravelly mutter. “I’m sorry to see this. I had no idea times had gotten so hard.”

That was more than she could take. Torn between grief-stricken sobbing and furious screaming but thoroughly sick of both, Anna’s exhausted limbic system apparently decided that the best compromise would be wild, incredulous laughter.

“You expect me to believe that?” she barked, leaning forward. “You honestly expect me to believe you didn’t have a hand in this? I’ve known you too long for that, too long and too well, I _know_ how you do business, you—”

“Consider _carefully_ before you make such accusations, young lady,” he snapped. “For the years of friendship between our families, if for nothing else, I don’t want to have to call security on you. But I assure you: if pressed, I will.”

“My father was right about you. Entirely right. I thought for sure you’d have better prey to go after than tea shops, but once you take a dislike to someone, it really is incredible how far out of your way you’ll go to make their life hell.” Queasy chuckles kept bubbling up from her chest. They were less embarrassing than sobbing, at least, but hurt just as much. “What’s the angle, then? Do you have business contacts who want the real estate? Was it a favor for the bank? Or do you honestly still just hate my father that much, even after all these years?”

Richard let out a heavy sigh and reached for his phone. She tensed—she’ be on her feet in an instant if he called security, if it came to that, she would walk out of this building herself, by God, not be frog-marched out the door by some beefy guys in suits—but all he said into the receiver was, “Mr. Baker, would you locate a file for me. First Bank of Setauket v. Anna Strong. Thank you.”

Replacing the receiver, he told her firmly, “Mrs. Strong. _Anna_. Whatever differences I’ve had with your father, and indeed, whatever differences I’ve had with you, I make a policy of not letting personal prejudices contaminate my business. I assure you—” he had to raise his voice to be heard over her extremely unsubtle scoff, “— _I assure you_ that I had no knowledge of the filing against you and wouldn’t have interfered even if I had. This firm handles a dozen new cases every week. You cannot possibly expect me to be involved with all of them.”

“For me, I imagine you’d make an exception.”

“It’s admirable, how much importance you attach to your own existence. It points to a healthy level of self-esteem.” A tall, doe-eyed young man entered the room, rushed a little too earnestly up to the desk, and handed a thick manila folder to Richard. “Thank you, Mr. Baker. That will be all.” His personal assistant gave a nod that was practically a bow before stumbling out.

“Now. I shouldn’t even be sharing this with you, but for your father’s sake, and for your _friendship_ with Abe ... Here we are.” Leafing through the folder, he came to a page of apparent interest and turned the stack of papers around enough for Anna to read. She leaned forward and peered eagerly at the page, not even caring how desperate it made her look; she’d pretty much given herself away on that front. But if there was even a chance she could spot something they’d missed—ha, yes, the college dropout spotting something the lawyers didn’t catch, well, a girl could hope—if there was even a _chance_ , it would be worth it.

“The bank specifically requested extra review on your case. If I had to guess, I would imagine your husband’s little disappearing act left them a bit nervous. Nothing personal, I’m sure. They don’t know your character as I do.” She refused to rise to the bait. “As such, your case was referred directly to the head of our contracts department for his personal attention.” His finger tapped at the signature at the bottom of the page. Her eyes flicked down, but she only had time for a glimpse—an elegant swirl of a name, all flowing cursive and sweeping, elided lines—before Richard was pulling the file back towards himself and closing it. “So you see, Mrs. Strong, I had nothing to do with your case. It wasn’t even in my department.”

Anna barely heard. Only a glimpse of the signature, but there had been a name neatly typed beneath that looping scrawl, and she’d had more than enough time to make that out:

_Edmund Hewlett._

Edmund Hewlett, which meant ... absolutely nothing to her. A stranger. A stranger whose name she had never heard before, to whom she’d never spoken, whose face she’d never seen, had ruined her life. As easily and thoughtlessly as signing his name on a page.

“Not,” Richard added, some of the old snideness sneaking back into his tone, “that it would have made any difference even _had_ I been involved. This situation is no one’s fault but your husband’s and your own.”

Her eyes snapped back up to his face. That little twist of his mouth—he was so smug and so pleased with himself and so _obvious_ that it was all she could do not to punch him in the teeth. Instead, she balled her fists into her lap and stood.

“Don’t believe for one moment I’m going to take this lying down.”

He leaned back in his chair and gave her a look so casual as to be insulting. “I will certainly take that under advisement, Mrs. Strong. Unfortunately, I can’t see what you could possibly do about it.”

The twist of his mouth was pulling toward a full-on smirk, the expression not half as charming on him as on his son. Richard Woodhull had never, in her experience, been very practiced at concealing his emotions. Anger in particular he never held back. And that made the calmness with which he was regarding her now even more gutting, because it meant that she wasn’t even worth getting het up about.

Anna gathered the flaps of her coat around herself, ignoring the brush of loose threads dangling buttonless at the end of her sleeve. She straightened her spine in her stained sweater and, when she spoke, she did it not in a shout, but in a murmur calm and cold. “My father saw through you, eventually.” Even mentioning Dad was an ache, but the way Richard’s mouth halted in its upward turn made it worth the pain. “In the end, so will everyone else. And they’ll hate you for it. God knows your son already does.”

She could say this much for herself: she may have failed at everything else that day, but this—this one little thing—worked just as she intended. Richard’s hand slammed down onto the desktop as he stood, his calm demeanor shattered in a breath.

“ _Hates me_? Abraham hates _me_? _All I’ve ever done_ has been for Abraham!” Shoulders hunched, he spat the words at her in a vicious hiss. “I’ve supported him through school. I’ve set up a career for him, a family, an _entire life_ , and yet he _persists_ in these juvenile rebellions that he learned from _you_! You ruined him, Anna, every moment he spends in your presence persists in ruining him, just as your father ruined—”

“No. You can blame my father for your falling out; you can blame me for Abraham having a single independent thought in his head, for that I’ll gladly take credit. If encouraging a person to think for himself counts as ruining him, I hope I ruin everyone I meet.” She felt her mouth twist horribly. “But the cold truth is that it was not I, nor my family, that turned your son from you. You can thank yourself for that.”

“ _Get. Out!_ ” Richard nearly shouted, his hands slamming palm-down on the desk. “Come back here again and I _will_ have you arrested for trespassing, I don’t care whose daughter you are, I swear—” and that was all she heard before she was out the door, once again nearly running into Mary, who didn’t bother to stammer even a cursory denial that she’d been listening at keyholes.

Anna nodded in curt acknowledgment. “Mary.”

Mary hesitated with her mouth open, then bit her lip, looking as though, given a moment, she might eventually remember how to speak, but Anna didn’t stick around to hear. If she lingered, people would begin to gather, people would begin to talk. And Richard might decide that security did need calling after all. She may have lost her shop, the protection of her husband, and what little stability and purpose she had left in her life, but she would not give up her dignity so easily. If there was anything left of her, he _would_ have to take it from her. She would give him nothing.

Richard, Selah, Abraham, the bank, this Edmund Hewlett with his elegant signature and precise, unfeeling destruction of her entire life—sometimes it seemed to Anna that the only thing she was good at was losing things, but perhaps that was because everyone around her was so very eager to _take_.

So. Her chin held high and eyes dead forward, she strode past Mary and wide, wide eyes. Past the break room, where a young intern was struggling to contain some sort of catastrophe with the coffee maker. Down the hall a little further, and around the corner, and—

“Oh—”

—and face-first directly into another human’s chest.

Anna flung one hand out to the nearest wall as she staggered, stumbling backward from the impact. The heels of her boots skittered momentarily on the tile but mercifully steadied before she could compound the day’s pleasures by falling on her ass.

“Ah—beg pardon,” someone was saying, somewhere to her left. Some man whom she really did not have time to pay attention to at the moment and whom she would have gladly ignored had he not still been blocking her escape route. Courtesy probably demanded at least acknowledging the innocent bystander she’d nearly flattened, however; so, breathless, she forced herself to look up.

The first thing she noticed was his hands, which were large and square and inexplicably full of coffee mugs. Two or three dangled from each hand, the handles hooked around his fingers, some of the mugs empty and some still half full of sloshing brown caffeine sludge. Oh, wonderful; hopefully he hadn’t gotten any on her coat.

The second thing she noticed was the pair of reading glasses resting against the front of his impeccable white shirt. They were hanging from around his neck on one of those cords she’d never seen used by anyone under the age of sixty, which made the third thing she noticed (that he was not, judging by his face, anywhere close to sixty) a touch surprising.

The fourth thing she noticed was that he was, for some reason, squinting at her with a frown that suggested he’d never seen anything half so odd in his entire life.

She risked a surreptitious glance down her front to make sure she wasn’t covered in coffee. By the time she looked up again, something in the man’s face had cleared, the frown snapping into a broad smile with startling speed.

“Oh! Why, hello again!” His accent was unexpected and kind of insufferable and naggingly, worrisomely familiar, filling her with the horrible feeling that this day was about to yank the rug out from under her yet again. All her uneasy efforts to place him came up frantic and empty, until— “Whatever has lured you so far away from your teas?”

Two thoughts streaked across Anna’s mind in rapid succession: _English breakfast, milk first, honey,_ and, _Oh my God, I was right. His cheekbones are ridiculous_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I wrote a whole chapter with like … no Hew. Don’t worry, I love him too much to stay away for long.
> 
> Anna quotes nearly directly from S2E6: "But the cold truth is that it was not I, nor my family, that turned your son from you. You can thank yourself for that." I occasionally pull lines from show dialogue and will do my best to note when I do so, but in case I forget, if a particular turn of phrase ever seems familiar, that's the likely explanation.


	3. Epiphany

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our lovers are reunited at last! Huzzah?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to keep up a theme of naming chapters either after relevant teas or after episode titles from the show. Chapter 1 was named after the tea and coffee plants; Chapter 2 was inspired by S1E10. This chapter continues that trend by taking its title directly from S1E5. How long will I be able to keep this theme up? Probably not long!

Edmund’s thoughts fell into place in a cataract of delayed epiphanies.

 _Oh, I’ve just run into someone_ , was the first. Or, to formulate an alternative hypothesis: someone had just run into _him_. Much as with studying the behavior of quantum particles, the most accurate description of the situation probably changed depending upon how an observer looked at it. In either case, the laws of propriety demanded it be addressed at once. Before he’d even gotten a proper look at his fellow collider, Edmund had already taken a small step backward as his mouth emitted an automatic, “Ah, beg pardon.”

Only then, with a proper amount of personal space standing between them, did he acquire sufficient data to clarify the first epiphany and precipitate a second. One: whereas he remained quite steady on his feet, the other person had, it seemed, actually been knocked back by the collision, which—all else being equal—suggested that his vector of momentum had been the more forceful of the two and, ergo, he probably _should_ be considered the one who had done the running-into. Wonderful, just wonderful, especially considering Epiphany the Second: _Oh, I’ve just run into a woman_.

This deduction required less computation than the first. The human currently regaining its footing in front of him had long hair and was relatively short and, well, it wasn’t as though he was paying any particular attention to the shape of her body, in fact her winter coat rendered her rather shapeless, but the style of the garment made it clear—the _point_ was that she was definitively a female, and though it might not have been entirely politically correct to say, he instantly felt more contrite than he might have if he’d run into another male. His mother had not raised him to be the sort of man who careened around blind corners and knocked down women. Chivalry was alive and well and a permanent resident of House Hewlett.

Then, the unfortunate lady looked up.

Not very Johnny-on-the-spot, Epiphany the Third. Edmund felt distantly aware that there was _something_ he ought to be realizing here, but for several long seconds, all he could do was look quizzically at the woman in front of him and wonder at the sensation of vague familiarity before, abruptly, Epiphany Three arrived on the scene.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, quite involuntarily and—a bit _chipperly_? Rather too chipperly, he thought, forcing himself not to smile like an idiot because _Oh, what an odd coincidence: I’ve just run into the woman from the tea shop_.

It was her hair—that was what connected first. Thick, dark hair styled just as it had been the other day: pulled back into a braid yet escaping at every turn in flyaway locks that floated around her face and tufted out from the coils of her plait. Even as she caught her balance with a hand against the wall, her free hand darted up to tuck a stray strand behind her ear. The motion struck him as so rote that he wondered if she even realized she’d done it. She’d done the same thing that morning, what, the week before last, when she barreled out from the back room of the shop—feet, mouth, and hands all moving at once as she greeted him, her fingers swiping and petting ineffectually at her hair. _Ineffectually_ because he remembered the dark curve of a lock ghosting over her cheek as she’d brewed a cup of tea that he had not, if he were being honest, even tried. He’d taken it to the office, yes, and the warmth of the paper cup against his skin had been a low and pleasant hum in his palms as he walked with shoulders curled against the season’s chill, but once at Whitehall, he’d set the cup on his desk alongside the standing militia of old mugs and asked his assistant to bring him coffee. By the time he’d remembered the tea, it had long since gone cold. He couldn’t even recollect what blend he’d been persuaded to buy.

Yet even after nearly two weeks of incessant work, however, and deadlines, and stress, and the contortions of legalese and fine print, it seemed he had not forgotten the way she’d glanced over her shoulder at him as she prepared his tea, nor the way one of those flyaway hairs had caught in the corner of her mouth as her eyes met his.

 _Oh_ , said Epiphany Four, quietly. _Oh, I wasn’t misremembering. Her eyes really are very, very large._

They were matching gazes again now, but her expression in this instance could probably be described less as ‘Casually Glancing at a Customer’ and more along the lines of ‘Keeping a Wary Eye on the Villain Who’s Just Accosted Me for No Reason.’ Brows drawn, eyes huge and round, nostrils flaring; it rather reminded him of a horse balking in front of a jump.

 _Oh goodness, you’re staring at her, Edmund. Just silently ... silently staring. For the love of God, say something at once_.

“Why, hello again!” he forced himself to chirp, affixing a smile that, by his estimation, quite nicely straddled the line between reserved and welcoming without appearing too eager. “Whatever has lured you so far away from your teas?”

A slight shift in her expression, then; less the blind panic of refusing a jump, more the ears-back, arch-necked wariness of a horse confronted with a new pasture-mate. Oh. His stomach gave an odd little twist. She didn’t recognize him. Likely did not, in fact, even remember his visit. He refused to feel disappointed by that because honestly, it was beyond unreasonable to think that she _should_ have remembered him. She probably served dozens of customers a day, and with her shop so near the financial district, all the businessmen likely blended together into one suit-wearing blur.

“Ah.” Oh dear. She was still staring. Wondering, most likely, what she’d done to deserve being cornered by a madman. Though confidence was swiftly draining to make room for embarrassment, for lack of any better option, he set his heels and plowed onward. “Two weeks ago, give or take. You prepared me something with honey in it, I think, at your insistence, though I’m afraid I was something of a ... difficult customer. We had an engaging discussion about the relative merits of different neurotransmitters.”

No change in her expression. Nothing. He cleared his throat. “I was initially very much in favor of stimulants, but you gave such an impassioned defense of certain chemical depressants that, in the end, I was forced to acknowledge the wisdom of your position vis-à-vis theanine and its various, ah. Salutary properties.”

There. That would jog something, surely? Unless she were the sort of woman who discussed theanine with just _anybody_. Perhaps so; he wouldn’t judge. As he attempted to wave one hand in a sort of vaguely illustrative gesture, he remembered suddenly and acutely that he was holding half a week’s worth of cold, half-empty mugs that had been piling up around his desk. He made to abort the gesture, but not quickly enough to prevent the mugs making an awkward _clink_ that drew her eye. Good lord, he must look ridiculous. _Abort mission, Edmund; abort!_

“Ah, well—at any rate, my … Um. Apologies.” Her expression had shifted to something suggesting he had two heads. He was fairly certain he did not, but decided he’d rather not wait for her to explain exactly which of the _many_ things odd about him she was currently fixating upon. “I shan’t delay you any longer; I’m sure you’ve much to attend to now, what with, you know, the shop ...”

It was a rhetorical fire escape, an etiquette emergency exit clearly marked with a neon sign: an unambiguous signal that the conversation was over and that he would now step aside, allow her to pass, and then retreat to the break room kitchen and hide until she was safely gone. That was how it ought to have gone. But before he could take even one step to the side, her eyes snapped back to his. No longer hazed with confusion, they were hard and sharp and bright with something he couldn’t name.

“My shop?” she repeated, the phrase falling heavy as a river stone between them. Her voice was low and throaty and as unexpected now as it had been that first morning. He’d never known another woman with such a voice. Yet it wavered as she continued, “What do you mean about my shop?”

“Pardon?” Now, apparently, was _his_ turn to stare blankly. “The—the shop. Your shop. Your tea shop, ah, the one in which you make tea?” That ... _was_ her shop, was it not? Oh no, _oh no_ , what if he’d been _wrong_ , what if he’d been nattering on at some perfect stranger all this time? She may as well kill him now; it would be a kinder fate than waiting to discover whether embarrassment could, in fact, prove lethal. “You know, the one that doesn’t serve coff—”

“I know what I serve in my own fucking shop.”

The words, so low and flat, felt like a slap. No—like slamming a book cover shut in a quiet room. Edmund felt, for no reason that he could discern, suddenly cold. Her arms rose to cross over her chest as she took a stiff step backward. “What do you mean, I’ve much to attend to, ‘ _now_ , _what with my shop’_?”

What? His mind stumbled back, epiphanies nowhere to be found now that he actually needed the damn things. Her shop; yes, all right, that’s what he’d said, but he hadn’t meant anything _untoward_. Only that it must be a great commitment, running a shop, and that presumably she would be wanting to conclude whatever business she had here and get back as soon as possible. Wouldn’t she? “Well. I should think it obvious. Ah. What I mean is, you’re here, so—”

“You know, then. About the shop.” Another small step back. Balking again. No, not balking, exactly: ears back, neck arched, chin tipped high and eyes flashing. Not a horse threatening to run; a horse threatening to kick.

“Of course I know about the shop,” he began with a careful backward step of his own. “I—”

“And yet you keep _talking about it_ as though it’s, as though it’s _funny_ , as though _nothing’s wr_ —”

“What, well, yes, I mean, no, why—”

“Are you _mocking_ me, sir?” Her voice lashed like a whip. He actually took another step back from the force of it, the way it echoed between the corridor’s thin walls. “Is that what this is, seriously, are you honestly, what— _twisting the knife_? _Really_?”

“There is no need whatsoever to shout,” he snapped, shoulders squaring instinctively. His own voice he managed to keep level and low, but only just. Embarrassment tangled with confusion tangled with a rising, nervous anger; after all, there was odd and there was _rude_ , and yes, he may have been too forward, he may have initiated this conversation in a somewhat unorthodox manner ( _id est_ , knocking her into the wall), and he may, in fact, have looked _somewhat_ less magisterial than he would have liked given that he was dangling five old mugs from his fingers, but intentional rudeness was not a thing Edmund had ever been able to face without bristling. “We are in public, for goodness’ sake. Madam, I cannot imagine what reason you have to be so— _uncouth_.”

The woman barked a single, strangled laugh. A strand of hair caught at her lip, but he no longer found it very enchanting.

“You’ve got some nerve. Was it you, then? Are you—”

“If that will be all, madam, I really _shall not_ keep you a moment longer; I’m certain your shop—”

“ _Not another word about my shop_.”

“I wouldn’t waste another _breath_ on it, let alone an entire word!” he sputtered in half a shout. That was unworthy, he felt it as soon as he said it and saw it in the pang of hurt that shuttered her eyes, but he felt hot all over with humiliation and with annoyance, too, a creeping, rising flush of agitation, because _why_ had he tried to converse in the first place and _why_ couldn’t she simply have _pretended_ to endure him and he should have shut his mouth long ago but he simply could. Not. Stop. Ceramic clinked as he swept a mug-bearing hand to one side. “I couldn’t even stomach the first drink you made me, much less entertain thought of another! So, as it seems we could have nothing further to discuss, I’ll be fetching myself some proper coffee and let _you_ get back to your precious, abandoned _shop_.”

The only reaction she gave was a stilling of her features and the faintest tremor in her hand where it gripped the sleeve of the opposite arm. Her knuckles were chapped by cold, reddened and roughened by years of hard work and steam, blotched white and prominent by the tension in her hand, yet he found he couldn’t look away.

For a moment, there was nothing in the world but her trembling hand. Then there was the creaking of a door and a familiar voice calling his name.

“Edmund?”

Far beyond the turquoise curve of her shoulder, he saw Richard standing the doorway of his office, staring at them. His face was screwed up in a question that Edmund couldn’t begin to parse.

At Richard’s voice, the woman had turned as well, her braid slipping down from her shoulder and curling along her back. She looked at Richard. Richard looked at her. Edmund realized he would have to explain, in a moment, what on Earth was going on here, little though he understood it himself, and rapidly began to search for a diplomatic way to express ‘I appear to have deeply offended this woman with my choice of caffeine.’ Then she looked back at him. Neither her hand nor her voice trembled when she spoke.

“Edmund _Hewlett_ , I presume.”

 _Oh_ , chirped an extremely belated Epiphany Five: _She knows my name_. How pleasant it sounded in her rich and mellow voice. How distracting to think of the shape of it in her mouth.

 _Although_ , as Epiphany Six had the good sense to question, arriving breathless on Five’s heels: _how_ did she know his name, precisely? Had he given it to her? He couldn’t recall having given it to her. Epiphany Seven was trying desperately to hail him from a distance but still had not quite arrived. Now that he thought of it, however, she had, in fact, given him _her_ name. Her surname, at least. What had it been? Storm, Stark, Stern; Epiphany Seven might know, if it ever got here. It was on the tip of his tongue, now; something very Anglo-Saxon and resonant and strong—

— _Oh_.

_OH._

The warmth of a hot paper cup cradled in his hands; a signature on payments for an overdue loan; a steep mortgage on a small commercial lot only a few blocks away from this very office, the location of which he had never, in all those hours spent carefully poring over contracts and combing through fine print, thought to map in his mind. The imminent foreclosure of a business whose name he hadn’t known. Epiphany Seven slammed into him with the force of all these disparate ideas falling terribly into place at once.

“Mrs. Strong,” he breathed, and thought he might wilt away right there from the sheer horror of it.

Anna, he recalled from the paperwork. Her name was Anna.

Anna Strong had a narrow mouth and fine features that had all gone stiff and brittle and sharp-edged as she regarded him from what seemed an insurmountable distance, though she stood only feet away. Anna Strong had, he understood now, a missing husband and a quaint little tea shop that he knew would very soon no longer be hers at all. And, as she slowly moved forward, unfolded her arms, and looked him in the eye from only two steps away, he found himself looking again at her hands. The line of her wrist left him spellbound, oddly dazed; the bend of her fingers as she wrapped them around the mug with the most coffee left in it and eased it from his unresisting grasp formed a compelling shape that he would very much have liked to sketch. He could never have done it justice.

His mind crackled emptily as she took a step back. He hadn’t moved, he realized. He _must_ move. Must speak, at least. But what could he say that could erase everything he’d already said? Oh, God: _was he mocking her_ , she’d asked, and he—he hadn’t known, hadn’t thought. Looking at her now, with her dark eyes so deep and hard and her chapped hands on his mug, he hardly knew where to begin.

“That’s—not very warm anymore, I should think,” he managed as she took a delicate sip from the cup. Her face crinkled up in disgust.

“No,” she agreed, surprisingly calm. He’d expected shouting. He might have been prepared, at least, for shouting. “It’s not.”

And without the slightest hesitation, she flicked her wrist forward and threw the contents of the mug into his face, splashing him from nose to navel with coffee that was, indeed, quite cold.

Bitter and stale and cold, stone cold—Edmund stood motionless with his lips slightly parted and the earthy grit of coffee grounds on his tongue, too shocked, too frozen in the headlights of her eyes, to do anything other than _look_ at her. And all he could see, looking at her, was the fury in her face: the flare of her nostrils, the grim twist of her mouth, the fathomless, impenetrable depths of her eyes. For two taut heartbeats, nobody moved.

Then everybody did.

“Oh my goodness,” someone gasped. Mary’s voice. Wait, _Mary?_ Oh lord, Mary was standing just over there, one hand clapped over her mouth, and she’d seen everything— _everyone_ had seen everything—every single partner, associate, secretary, paralegal, and intern in the company had, apparently, selected the same precise moment to stop what they were doing and all gather around the corridor to the break room, affording _the entire firm_ front-row seats to his humiliation, and, and, what, had they, had they _collaborated_ on this? Why were they all _there_? Had they planned this? Had everything—the argument, the coffee, Mrs. Strong’s presence in Whitehall entirely—all been some sort of, of hazing, a _prank_ , orchestrated so that everyone could _laugh_ at him? No, no, that was ridiculous, and it wasn’t _everyone_ , it was only a handful, but he—he couldn’t think. He felt cold all over, far too cold to blame solely on the damp, and his tie was dripping and his white shirt stained brown, but worse than the material damage was the sight of all those faces, those eyes, the identical expressions of shock and confusion and horrified, scandalized, voyeuristic _glee_ mirrored on all sides.

Voices, voices, people muttering and murmuring and _tsk-tsking_ all around ... except for _her_. _She_ remained absolutely silent as she pressed the empty mug back into his hand. His fingers closed around the handle automatically. Her body was no more than a foot apart from his. He couldn’t pinpoint when she’d gotten so close. No more than he could pinpoint how long she’d been holding his gaze or when his face had turned toward hers. She blinked at him, once. Then, still wordless, she slipped around his side, her shoulder just brushing his arm as she pushed past, and strode toward the exit.

Richard was a thundercloud on her heels, storming down the corridor with fury on his face. Edmund’s brain struggled to catch up as Richard approached, yelling, “Where the hell do you think you’re going? So help me, Mrs. Strong, I warned you—”

“Richard,” Edmund said quietly, stopping his friend with the touch of two fingers to the other man’s arm. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the other man, unable to tear his gaze from the empty patch of carpet where she’d stood. “Don’t.”

The look Richard turned on him was half fury, half disbelief. “You can’t seriously intend to just _let_ her—”

“I intend just that.” The words came out in a brisk snap that surprised even Edmund. Louder than he’d intended, as well. Everyone would have heard ... Well. Let them hear. He straightened, hitching a stiff smile into place and forcing his tone to lighten to something disaffected and wry, and continued as though there was no one around save Richard and himself. “Not to worry, Richard, really. You must understand, I … have _quite_ an effect on women.”

That did the trick: a bubble of uneasy laughter rippled through the crowd, and, with the spell broken, the others began to disperse. Some good Samaritan and/or sycophant took the mugs from his hands, freeing him to tug at his tie. The silk was drenched, the design thoroughly ruined. He’d liked that one, too. Mother had given it to him.

Richard remained at his side, and that look remained on his face. “In all seriousness, Richard,” Edmund murmured, striving for matter-of-fact as he folded the ruined tie around his hand. He wiped ineffectually at his face with one palm, succeeding only in smearing things about a bit. “Don’t think on it. I’m certain Mrs. Strong has had a—” his voice faltered; “—a trying day.”

“Which excuses her from assaulting you _how_ , precisely?” growled the other man. “You could press charges for this. You _should_ press charges. If for no other reason than to let the record in her foreclosure proceedings reflect this behavior.”

Even thinking of her legal situation made his stomach twist. “Don’t be absurd.” With a sigh, he smoothed a hand over his chest. The formerly crisp fabric of his shirt clung thin and translucent to his skin, a clammy, unpleasant sensation. A tie he could go without for the day, but he couldn’t very well spend the rest of the afternoon exposing himself any more than he already had. “I don’t suppose you just _happen_ to have an extra shirt to hand?”

“Even if I did, any of mine would swallow you.” Over Richard’s shoulder, Edmund spotted a flash of plum as Mary approached. “Go home. Take the day, if you like.”

“Nonsense. I’ll return within the hour,” he protested, but then Mary was upon them, laying a hand on Edmund’s upper arm and—oh, the dear, clairvoyant saint—pressing several napkins into his hand.

“Mr. Hewlett! Are you all right?” Without waiting for a response, she turned to her father-in-law, a strange intensity in her eyes and a hush in her voice. “What was _she_ doing here?”

In all the months he’d known them, Richard and Mary had seemed the closest of the Woodhulls, a united front against Abraham’s vacillations and occasional willfulness. But the look Richard turned on her now astonished Edmund with its coolness, as did the harsh snarl of his voice. “Nothing of your concern.”

Mary’s breath hitched. Her hand dropped from Edmund’s arm, and the look on her face was one he wished he had never seen. “Father—”

“I’ll just be ... Excuse me,” Edmund murmured, and turned to stride unsteadily back down the hall. The coffee, the humiliation, the pain and outrage and utter _revulsion_ in Anna Strong’s huge eyes—his thoughts were in confusion enough already without adding Woodhullian interpersonal drama to the mix. The Prime Directive, he must remember the Prime Directive. Violating the Prime Directive only ever ended in disaster for the crew or in the disillusionment of the planet-of-the-episode’s natives, who more often than not would have been happier to remain in undisturbed ignorance. Involving himself in this conversation could only endanger his perception of his friends … the Woodhulls, such a lovely family, the most charming, picture-perfect family he’d ever had the pleasure to know … and he did not—he would rather not see that image tarnished in any way.

Not now. Not today.

Today, all he could do was head back to his flat, tidy up a bit, and continue on with his day as though nothing had happened. Which, really, it hadn’t. One hiccup in an otherwise unremarkable afternoon. Such was business; there would always be setbacks, but it was the duty of figures in authority to demonstrate that, whatever the random calamities of fate, one must remain professional above all else. So he set his chin up and his eyes forward as he left the office, and he refused to acknowledge the looks his colleagues snuck at him or to consider what they must be thinking:

_Who was that woman? What does she have against Hewlett?_

_Do you suppose maybe she’s an ex?_

_She’s much younger than he is._

_I bet he was unkind to her. I bet he was just using her. I bet she was just after his money._

_Why else would a pretty girl like that have anything to do with him? What else could it be?_

No, he must _not_ think about any of that.

He did a very bang-up job of it, too, of not thinking about these things, all through the taxi ride to his flat, all during the process of selecting a new shirt and dropping his soiled clothing off at the dry cleaner’s, and all through the walk to the subway station and the rumbling, half-lit ride in the train. In fact, he was quite proud of what a good job he was doing of it right up until the moment he lifted his head and realized that, rather than following the familiar route from the station to Whitehall, his feet had wandered several streets afield and brought him, inexorably, directly to the dark-windowed front of Mrs. Strong’s shop.

 

\---

 

Anna was halfway back to the shop, striding headlong down the sidewalk in a shivering daze of hot-flashing fury and freezing despair, before she remembered that she’d silenced her phone.

 **Whats wrong?????**  
**Anna**  
**Plz txt me**  
**ANNA**  
**Anna anna anna**  
**K fien ok**  
**Im almost @ the shop**  
**Just**  
**Just tell me ur ok**  
**Babe u left teh door unlocked. im inside**  
**Plz come back**

The storefront was dark, the blinds drawn shut, the sign flipped to CLOSED. She threw herself through the door and straight into Abe’s arms.

Oh. Oh, he smelled of soap and bad cologne, like Axe or some other body spray better suited to a teenager, and he smelled just a little bit of smoke. Out of nowhere, she remembered the rug in front of the big fireplace they used to play on as children in the Woodhulls’s living room. She imagined him playing with Thomas on that same rug, the fire crackling, and pressed her face into his neck and shuddered with dry sobs as she told him everything.

Through it all, his hands were moving over her: sliding comfortingly along her back, combing through her hair, just holding her. How fucking long had it been since she’d been _held_.

When she was done, he pressed his long, crooked nose into her hair and murmured the only thing that mattered: “I didn’t know.”

Tears squeezed from her eyes as she nodded. It changed nothing, but still, she couldn’t have survived it if he’d known.

His left hand slid between her shoulder blades and settled within the hollow of her lower back, fingers splayed over her spine. His right curled into the hair at her nape. Their bodies were pressed together from head to toe, each of them standing with one leg between the other’s two; he leaned just so against the table behind him, and she leaned with him, sinking into the motion; and his fingers were playing gently with her hair, his palm rubbing small circles over her back that soothed her and warmed her and made her stomach twist low and desperate with—

It had been years. Not since before Selah; not since before Mary. But their lips still fit together with ease.

A frantic shiver rushed up her spine as his hand shot up to cradle the back of her head, the base of his thumb pushing just into the lower curve of her skull, his fingers tangling. They pushed through her braid, pulling the hair out, wrecking it, sharp tugs on her scalp that would have been painful if the mere thought of his hands on her body hadn’t left her so twisted up and so achingly hot. Don’t let go of his mouth, don’t lose the taste of him, so familiar and yet subtly, almost indecipherably changed, because if she stopped kissing him he might start to speak and there was nothing she wanted to talk about right now. All that mattered was what they could say with greedy hands and the slide of their tongues. _I miss you. I still love you. Please don’t leave me, why did you ever leave me, don’t make me lose you, too_.

“Shit,” Abe breathed into her mouth, voice so tense it almost sounded angry. His hands dug into her hips. She didn’t even have to lean up in order to kiss him silent or reach above her head to pull his sandy hair from its short tail. How strange, after years of standing on her toes for Selah. One hand relaxed its grip on her hip, fumbled beneath the tight waistband of her jeans, slid down, down, down, oh God, and hers followed suit on him.

It was nothing like their first time. The first time, they had been teenagers, virgins both, nervous and giggling and deliriously, drunkenly giddy over finally being free to kiss, to touch, to want everything from one another after years of being too afraid to admit their feelings. And for years after that, it was the dorms—studying in Abe’s impossibly narrow bed, eating chips and bowls of ramen in his bed, watching videos on his laptop in his bed, doing everything in bed, so that the slide to sex was often slow and languid and natural and followed by an equally slow and natural slide into sleep. After college, what remained of their relationship had become a wintery thing in her memory: too many long, shivering walks between their apartments, too many hours spent huddling alone at bus stops or in doorways as she waited, always waiting for him, punctuated by hot, golden moments indoors as they peeled off each other’s clothes before they’d even said hello—those rare, stolen moments when they could both get away from work and had so little time together that neither one of them wanted to waste it with talking, because the only thing there was to talk about was the end that both could see on the horizon but neither had the courage to acknowledge just yet.

If this time was like any of their old ones, it was like that: one of those last, desperate, wordless times before the end, when she’d stopped thinking of what they were doing as _making love_ and started using the word _fuck_. But she could never remember his grip being so hard, before, or his hands so clumsy as he tugged and tore at the fly of her jeans, and she had never used her teeth with him before, but she used them now, bit his lip till he hissed, because Abe had _so much_ to lose yet never actually lost any of it, and right now, everyone in the whole fucking world deserved to hurt as much as she did.

This was not making love.

It was the jangle of his belt coming undone and the chafe of denim scraping against her hips.

It was Anna hobbled and helpless with her jeans in a tangle around the tops of her boots, letting Abe spin her around and lift her up onto the table, only to realize a moment later that she couldn’t part her legs, not without taking off her boots. She made to reach down to the zippers on the insides of her calves, but then Abe was pulling her to the floor once more, gathering her against his chest and whispering, “Turn, turn around, quick—”

Her hipbones hit the edge of the table. For two breaths, Anna’s thighs were bare to the cold, ever-humid air; then Abe’s were pressing tight against hers.

Abraham Woodhull was a hot breath along the nape of her neck and a stirring of the hairs at the base of her skull.

He was the way her fingers clenched around the far edge of the table and the way the near edge dug into her stomach as he pushed her forward, forward, forward, and that _hurt_ , the table did, it really hurt; she found herself biting her lip against whimpers and grinding her forehead into the tabletop as the hand on the center of her back pushed her forward and down. His body was bent over hers, his legs entangled with hers with one of her knees bent and the other straight, so that she feared she might fall over the instant he stopped holding her up. If he dropped her, she thought, scrunching her eyes shut, she would never be able to stand up again; not on her own.

The table smelled of bitter leaves and the faint, overlapping aromas of dozens of different herbs, flowers, spices, additives, bergamot oil and milk and cardamom and ginger and verbena and lemongrass and passion fruit and sugar, the signature scents of years of spilled tea soaked into the wood. Anna’s lips brushed the surface as she tried to remember to breathe.

Her eyes were still shut when Abe exhaled hard, dropping over her with one elbow on the table, and pressed his forehead into her shoulder.

He stopped moving. Panted shakily into her ear for a few more breaths, his hand clenching on the edge of her field of view.

Then, finally, he stepped back.

Anna wavered, tried to straighten her legs, and instead slid bonelessly to the floor. Breathless, trembling. The tile cool and clammy on her flushed skin. A line across her stomach aching dully as Abe pulled up his jeans, leaving his belt unfastened, and lowered himself to sit at her side.

Neither of them said a word. She couldn’t look at him and didn’t dare check to see whether he was looking at her.

He cleared his throat. Classic Abe-speak for ‘all right then, _moving on_.’ “I’m, uh. I’m real sorry, Anna. About the shop.”

She smoothed back her hair. Little difference though it made. “Yeah.”

In the periphery of her vision, she could see him nodding his head slowly over and over again, continuing even as the silence stretched.

Her stomach was throbbing, and her hipbones, and other places, too, as she felt keenly when she lifted her hips enough to roll up her jeans. A dull, persistent ache of frustration and strain, and Abe was still just _nodding_ , looking to the other side as she buttoned her fly, and he _had_ to say something or she’d die.

A deep breath; she opened her mouth, hoped to hell she could explain—

And was cut off before she even began by a jangling tune she recognized, after a startled moment, as Abe’s ringtone.

“Ah, shit. One sec.” He swiped to answer. “Hey, Mary.”

Every one of Anna’s words died, leaving her cold.

“Nah, I’m out runnin’ errands. So wha—he’s fine, Mary, Aberdeen’s got him. Jesus, that’s the whole reason we hired her.”

Anna could hear the tinny, distorted echo of Mary’s voice through the receiver, but couldn’t make out any individual words. Her hands trembled as she fiddled with her ruined hair. Mary. So lovely and so delicate. Mary in the corridor at Whitehall, grabbing her wrist, staring into her eyes, furious, fearful, imploring. Her voice in the silence after—after Hewlett. And the way Anna had pried her small fingers from her wrist and assured her that this had nothing to do with her, nothing to do with Abe, because it _hadn’t_.

Not when she’d said it, at least.

Abe stank of Axe and sweat and Anna thought she might be sick.

“Sure. Of course. Whatever you like.” That placating tone, short and edged thoroughly with sarcasm. Selah, for all his faults, had never spoken to her like that. “Twenty minutes, I’ll be there. Love ya. Bye.”

“You have to go,” Anna said as soon as he’d hung up, before he could look at her. While she could still keep herself from looking at him. She watched her own hands instead, her fingers picking at a loose thread in her cuff.

“Yeah. Mary wants me to come by. Sounds, y’know, upset. I gather you, ah—made a bit of a scene?” There was a smile in his voice as endearingly rebellious as in their prime protest days. The sort of smirk that had always sparked her own. She swallowed, looked away.

“Go through the park. You can cool down a bit, and it’s about the right distance. If you get there too soon, she’ll wonder.”

A moment’s pause. When he spoke again, the smile was gone. “Yeah. I’ll do that. Um.” A shift in the air as he leaned toward her. No. No, please, not a kiss. She couldn’t handle a kiss right now. Her entire body tensed as his hand came to rest on her shoulder, but he only kissed her hair. “Again, I’m—real sorry, babe.”

“Abraham.”

“Yeah?”

“Just go.”

“ ... Right.”

Zipper fastening, the jangling of his belt. Footsteps leading away from her. But he paused in front of the door.

“Um. Hey, Annie?”

Any moment now, she was going to scream. “ _Abraham_ , I am _begging_ you, _for your own good_ —”

“Annie, there’s someone at the door.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Guys, I swear this is an Anna/Edmund fic. I swear there will be fluff and romance and so much lovey-dovey shit. Involving Anna and Edmund and, like, not Abraham. Soon. Don't give up on me now.


	4. Tasseography

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our heroes get some quality alone time together at last. What could possibly go wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tasseography: Divination by reading the patterns left within a cup, as by tea leaves. Does it count as sticking with my title themes if the title is at least tea _related_?
> 
> This is a pretty quote-heavy chapter, so those are cited at the end. Additionally, this chapter includes some bonus rambling about Classic literature—free of charge! There are a couple short Latin phrases, but a translation should show up when you hover your cursor over the text.

On a clear February night in the year he would turn twelve, Edmund wrapped himself in his warmest bathrobe, pulled a baggy cap down over his ears, tucked the hems of his pajama trousers into a pair of snow boots, wrestled his brand-new Dobsonian-mounted Newtonian reflecting telescope into his arms, tiptoed downstairs and past his parents’ bedroom door (banging the scope’s mount into a corner only once, no harm done, no parents awakened), and set up shop in the part of the front garden where the trees didn’t edge in too close and the streetlight wasn’t too bright and the sky spilled open above him in a splendid patch of jeweled blue. Damp soaked through to his knees as he knelt in the grass fiddling with the knobs and dials, squinting into the lens again and again until the aperture and focus seemed just right. Then, settling himself with his eye to the scope and one hand stabilizing the mount as the other guided the tube, he went in search of the thing he’d been waiting for since he read his first space book years and years ago.

Conditions during this apparition had not been favorable. Though tonight the comet would reach its perihelion at last, the Sun lay between it and the Earth, and what with light pollution and the tilt of the planet’s axis in winter, viewers in the northern hemisphere shouldn’t expect to see much. But Edmund was diligent. He would likely not live to see this chance again. Even as his fingers turned blue with the cold, he combed the sky, desperate for that streak of white gold.

And broke into a wide and breathless smile when he finally found it, gleaming in the sky precisely where it was meant to be and precisely on schedule. Just as Halley had predicted so many years ago.

The graceful ellipses of the planets’ orbits; the slow wheeling of the stars; the comforting predictability of Halley’s comet—the physical universe was full of machinations so intricate as to boggle the mind, and ever since he was a boy, Edmund had never ceased to marvel at them. Irrational as it was, he found more than a touch of the divine in it all. Less irrationally still, he truly believed that whatever hand had crafted this magnificent machine did, in fact, occasionally leave hints and omens about His/Her grand design that even mere mortals could decipher. Signs given to men and women to help guide them in their journey through life.

This, clearly, was one such sign.

To be entirely specific, it was a laminated paper sign hanging from a string in the front window of Tea Manor, and on it was printed the word CLOSED. Taken together with the shuttered blinds over the windows, what clearer indication could he ask for that whatever purpose his feet had had in bringing him to her door, it was not meant to be? Mrs. Strong wasn’t even in.

 _Audentis fortuna iuvat , Edmund_, he admonished himself sternly. His feet must have brought him here for a reason; perhaps that was a sign in and of itself. Before he could think better of the venture, he raised a hand and knocked.

Silence.

A plasticy rustling to his right; he whipped around in time to see a blade of the window shades snap back into place, the whole set swaying from the movement. Yet no one came to the door, which was, well. _Rude_. He cleared his throat.

“Mrs. Strong!” He flinched at the volume of his own voice; he hadn’t meant to shout, only to be certain that she heard him through the glass, was all, and, oh, this was off to a splendid start. “It’s Edmund Hewlett. Please, I have no intention of fighting with you, I only wonder if I might … have a moment? A moment and a word?”

Again, no response, but the lull seemed _busier_ this time, undercut with the static of noises too faint to be sure he heard them at all: movement beyond the door, the scraping of something across tile, and, perhaps, voices? Voices or a singular voice, muted and hollow. Perhaps Mrs. Strong was calling some compatriot for reinforcement. Perhaps she was planning her escape out some back exit. Perhaps she was simply biding her time while brewing up something nice and _hot_ to throw in his face.

His face was a bit of an odd one, to be sure, but it was the only one he had. He stepped out of the immediate line of fire just to be safe.

“I understand this is not _entirely_ orthodox,” he tried again, steadfastly ignoring the raised eyebrows of curious passersby, “and that I may very well be quite low on your list of preferred conversation partners at this time, but I felt— _compelled_ to stop by.”

More of the voice. No, voices, he was sure of it. A bit louder this time, loud enough for him to discern two separate but overlapping strains. He squinted fruitlessly into the blinds, feeling, as he did, a creeping unease.

“Mrs. Strong? Is everything quite all—”

With a click and the merry jangling of a bell, the door opened, and he found himself unaccountably face to face with Abraham Woodhull.

Edmund blinked.

Woodhull the Younger executed an impressive counter-blink that snapped, in the next instant, into a familiar grin. “Heya, Mr. Hew! Fancy seein’ you round here, huh. Didn’t figure you for a tea drinker!”

Abe’s cheeks were flushed, his color high. His hair clearly had not seen a comb in recent memory and looked somehow darker than usual, as though with grease or sweat. His attire was extremely casual and looked to have been thrown on in a hurry, if the wrinkles were any indication. Richard would be appalled to know his son left the house in such a state.

In one hand, the young man held one of those familiar paper takeaway cups. Edmund blinked at the cup, then at the windows with their shuttered blinds, then at the sliver of shop revealed through the open door: lights on, mirrors bright with the glare, Mrs. Strong standing behind the counter as she wiped down a kettle. She seemed determined to look anywhere but the doorway. His final blink he directed at the laminate sign with its very clear insistence that the shop was closed.

This sideways feeling—a feeling like every other human being in the entire world had been given a shared script to follow and he was the only person blundering through without the slightest idea what the play was even about—was becoming dreadfully familiar today.

“All right there, Mr. Hew?”

Abe was still smiling. Not the way he smiled when playing with his son, Edmund realized; more the tight, defensive smile he so often wore when speaking with Richard. He could no more comprehend its meaning than he could Abe’s presence or when he had apparently become _Mr. Hew_ , what on _Earth_.

“What the h—” He stopped, pinched the bridge of his nose; “Forgive me, Abraham, but what in heaven’s name are you doing here?”

The smile edged into an affable, bemused little smirk that made Edmund suddenly understand, with perfect clarity, why Richard so often seemed on the verge of disowning the boy. “Uh—buyin’ a drink? Thought I’d drop in on Mary. She’s mad for the lemon verbena.” He wiggled the takeaway cup in his hand for emphasis. “What’re _you_ doing here?”

Abe’s raised eyebrows were clearly questioning Edmund’s sanity. He did not appreciate their opinion.

Edmund worked his jaw for a moment, considering. Mrs. Strong still had not looked their way. Not ostensibly, at least. Something in the stillness of her shoulders as she leaned against the back counter, the careful cant of his head, made him suspect that she was watching every moment in one of those manifold mirrors.

“Hey man, there some sort of trouble?”

His gaze snapped back to Abe, eyes narrowing. “Trouble? No trouble,” he answered, curt and loud. Loud enough that he knew she had to hear. “I … simply wish to drink. A tea.”

With that, he made to edge by Abraham, but the younger man caught him by the arm. “You know, I think she’s closin’ up for the day, actually. Hey, I just remembered. There’s actually something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, Mr. Hew. Wanna head back to Whitehall with me and we can—”

“ _Hewlett_. Thank you,” he veritably snapped. “I appreciate the offer, but—”

“Abe,” called a voice from within, mellow and soft and so awfully devoid of emotion, “let him in.”

She still hadn’t moved. From their place entangled in the doorframe, both men looked her way.

At last she straightened, lifting her elegant head and looking over with those deeply shadowed eyes that seemed to hold everything yet reveal nothing. The small smile she managed did not reach her eyes. “It’s all right. Mary’s tea will be getting cold.”

Abraham looked at her a moment more, his expression strange to Edmund, then, with something like a shake of his head, released Edmund’s arm and slipped past onto the sidewalk. “See ya round, _Mr. Hewlett_ ,” he called before striding down the street without a backward glance.

Leaving nothing between Edmund and Mrs. Strong but a half-open door, an expanse of tile, and the careful, closed-off way she was avoiding his gaze from behind the counter while her hand slowly clenched and unclenched in the fabric of her sleeve.

He would almost have rather faced a battlefield than that gaze. _Audentis, audentis_ , he reminded himself, drawing some fleeting courage from Virgil’s words before remembering that Turnus hadn’t lived very long beyond speaking them. Well, to borrow from Caesar instead: _alea iacta fuit_. Now, he could only watch to see how it landed.

Carefully, he stepped inside and closed the door. The bell jangled merrily into the silence.

It was a homey little place, Mrs. Strong’s shop. He hadn’t had enough presence of mind his first time in to take much of a proper look. A bit narrow, a bit cluttered, but rather than making the space seem disorderly, it suggested the careless, comfortable elegance of a home so well lived in that all the furniture and other elements had long since gravitated towards their most natural, optimal positions. A beauty born in efficiency and comfort rather than affected aesthetics. The tables were dark, heavy wood, the varnish scratched and chipped with wear; the menus hung above the counter where written in chalk in a neat, round hand he could only assume was her own. Very few of the items listed therein were familiar to him; he’d never made much more distinction between teas than ‘black’ and ‘green.’

As for Mrs. Strong herself, she looked … exhausted. As well she might be, he supposed. When he was a boy, his father’s own business had failed—not in one abrupt catastrophe of debt and fine print, but in increments so modest and so well concealed from him by his parents that for a long time, he’d scarcely noticed the slow erosion of luxuries. Fewer gifts at Christmastime, fewer dinners out, holidays spent visiting the grandparents rather than travelling abroad—he had assumed, once he did notice, that such changes were simply part and parcel of outgrowing the indulgences of childhood. Until the day his father finally, tearfully admitted that the family was all but bankrupt. In those bleakest of days, Edmund had more than once caught his mother paused in the middle of some ordinary task while staring into the middle distance and wearing the same expression Mrs. Strong wore now: brow creased, lips slightly parted, one hand pressed to her stomach and eyes dragged down by lines and heavy lids as she gazed at nothing and no one. As though all that fierce energy from before had drained out and left so little of anything inside her that she could hardly even move.

Her braid was in tatters. As he approached the counter with measured caution, pausing every few steps with his hand resting upon a chair back or a tabletop in case she decided suddenly to throw him out, he found his eye lingering on the way her shoulder blades shifted beneath her jumper as she pulled the tie from her hair and shook out what little of the intricate plait remained. For a breath, maybe two, her hair was a loose tumble hiding her face from view; then she gathered up the whole lot again and into a bun. And in the space of those two breaths, her gaze had sharpened, the lines of her forehead deepened into focus rather than fear, and her mouth firmed into a solid and closed line.

By the time he reached the counter and she turned to face him, the only hint of emotion left in her face was the redness around her eyes.

“Welcome to Tea Manor, sir,” she said in a voice maddeningly calm. “What can I get you?”

He glanced at the menus above his head. She said nothing more. He would rather have had shouting than … this. “Do you really mean to play this game, Mrs. Strong?” he asked softly, hating that he sounded so much less composed, even in that one sentence, than she did.

Her expression remained neutral as she answered, voice just as soft, “I’m not playing anything. You told Abe you wanted a drink. If you truly do, I’ll make you one. On the house. Not much point in charging anymore anyway, is there?” Her arms were still crossed tight over her chest. “But there is absolutely nothing else I intend to speak to you about.”

Ah, yes. Abe. He could not stop thinking of the boy’s peculiar smile, the one that seemed so winsome and yet so closed-off, so wary. “You are … acquainted with Abraham Woodhull,” he observed, watching for her reaction.

There was none. “I’m acquainted with all sorts of people.”

“I suppose it must have been an odd thing, your business at Whitehall—having such a dispute with the father of a … customer?”

“It’s really not that big of a city, Mr. Hewlett. Coincidences run amok. Now. You said you wanted _a word_ with me. You’ve already had more than a few, but I’ll give you one more. Just pick whichever drink you want, and say it.”

Again to the menu. Oolong, rooibos, Masala chai, Mahgrebi mint, osmanthus, lapsang souchong, sencha, matcha, genmaicha, pu-erh, Nilgiri—for goodness’ sake, those were just _nonsense_ words, they couldn’t possibly all be teas. There was simply no way any sane person would drink something called _pu-erh_. When he looked down, she still had him fixed under an expectant stare.

Apologize. What other purpose could his feet have had in bringing him here? He _must_ apologize.

Instead, when he opened his mouth, the word that fell out was, “Turnus.”

Mrs. Strong sent an uncertain glance to either side, quite as though _she_ had suddenly lost her script as well and was searching for someone to call out her line. “What?”

“I was thinking just now about Virgil’s _Aeneid_. Have you read it? _In latinam_ or otherwise? Turnus was an Italic chieftain.” His hands, clasped behind his back, itched as his tongue galloped along too swiftly for his mind to catch. _Alea iacta est , indeed._ “In the course of the war between the native Latins—like Turnus—and Aeneas’s Trojans, Turnus slays a young prince named Pallas, son of the Etruscan King Evander and something of a surrogate son to Aeneas himself. It goes without saying that this incident is Virgil’s rather transparent homage to Hector’s slaying of Patroclus in the _Iliad_ , and it has much the same narrative effect ... Like Achilles, Aeneas is devastated and wrathful, swearing vengeance upon the young man’s killer, et cetera, et cetera. The usual epic rot. The _Aeneid_ owes a great deal to the works of Homer, you see—to a great extent, it is a derivative work, yet simultaneously transformative; Virgil’s unauthorized sequel, one might say, to the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. Not entirely unlike the viewer-written stories in those, those, what do you call them, those _zines_ one might find passed around at a _Star Trek_ convention—not that I have ever—”

Mrs. Strong looked as though she was deeply regretting allowing him inside. He remembered, all of a sudden, that her side of the counter had access to quite a bit of scalding water.

“... Ah. Well, um. At any rate, I—you see, the difference, as I have always seen it, between Turnus and Hector is this.”

The counter, like the tables, bore the stains and scars of many years’ use. He focused on one particularly dark stain as he continued; words came more easily when he didn’t have to meet her eyes.

“Hector killed Patroclus, yes ... but not in the name of malice. In fact, he disapproved of the war entirely. He wished for nothing so much as peace, but he had a duty to fight in defense of his city, and so he did. He did not, however, even realize that he was fighting _Patroclus_. Achilles was having a bit of a sulk, you see, so Patroclus had donned Achilles’s armor in his place, and it was not until after the boy was slain that ... Well. I cannot say whether Hector felt remorse over Patroclus’s death in and of itself, but at least he did not pretend to have won some great victory over the boy. He did not glory in Achilles’s grief. He did not gloat.”

Now to the crux of things. The heart of the matter, the pivot point, the one thing he must make her understand; he tapped a finger against the counter for emphasis.

“ _Turnus_ gloated. He took Pallas’s sword belt off the boy’s corpse as a trophy and taunted Aeneas with it. At no point was he deceived; he targeted Pallas specifically, despite his youth; he hated Aeneas because he was a rival suitor to the princess Lavinia, and his explicit purpose in killing Pallas was to cause Aeneas pain. Turnus was a man of blood, red in tooth and claw. He killed Pallas for the pleasure and the cruelty of it.”

At last, he looked up. Her gaze was intent on his face. No smile, no frown, no change to the shape of her mouth or grand shift in expression, but he was certain that in eyes, something of that cruel composure had broken, revealing beneath it … he wasn’t entirely certain what. But she _was_ listening. At least he had that.

Edmund spread his hands between them, palms up.

“Mrs. Strong, I am no Turnus. I take no pleasure in causing anyone pain. I cannot and shall not apologize for having done my job and done it well, whatever role my actions might have played in your situation, but I would never—you must believe that I would never make light of the matter. I truly did not understand. I simply recognized you from the shop, and I … I hardly dare compare myself to one of the foundational heroes of Western literature, but I must tell you that I am, in this moment, feeling rather Hectoresque.”

For three or four long eternities, Mrs. Strong simply stared at him, her head canted back a bit and her expression impossible to read. At last, in a voice higher than usual and with very careful enunciation, she ventured slowly, “Is this … your attempt at an apology?”

“Ah. It was meant to be. Yes.”

“You’re attempting to apologize to me … by refusing to apologize for the only part I truly care about, while casting yourself as a tragic hero and me as … what. A dead, stupid, helpless boy?”

“What? No, I … It was meant to be _metaphor_ , madam, not allegory. There is a significant difference regarding the degree of specificity one should expect to—”

“Or is my shop the dead boy, and I’m, what? Achilles?” The huskiness was back in her voice, a hardness creeping in at the edges. Making a low hum in her throat, she looked to one side and smiled in an absent way that did nothing to reassure him. “As I recall, Achilles murders Hector. He kills him as he’s begging for mercy, then lashes him to his chariot by his heels, drags his body around the walls of Troy, and spends the next two weeks mutilating his corpse for fun. What an interesting notion, Mr. Hewlett.” Her straight, square brows lifted in sync. “Are you absolutely certain you still want to be Hector?”

It seemed to Edmund that there was no proper response in the world to that, so his mouth decided to do the only thing it could: bloom into a soft and genuine smile. He wagged a finger at her in approval. “So you _have_ read it.”

“The _Aeneid?_ No. But I had to read the _Iliad_ in school, and I saw the movie with Brad Pitt.” She turned away, taking three or four stiff steps to the rear counter, where various pieces of dishware and kettles and such had been marshaled beneath a vast display of little drawers built into the wall. Her hand darted to one about midway up the wall, hesitated above the knob, then drifted down to another. “Hated the book,” she murmured, reaching for a spoon. “At least the movie made Briseis a bit more interesting.”

The drawer she’d opened contained a sort of crumbly mess that did not, to his mind, quite fit his notion of tea. Of course he knew that the little paper sachets found within Harrods tins were not tea’s natural state, and he supposed he was so used to the idea of it as finely-ground and blended that the sight of actual, whole leaves might well have been surprising, but this drawer did not even appear to contain leaves. _Petals_ , perhaps? Stems, too, and … twigs? Bits of grass? Good lord, she actually meant to drink that. She’d scooped several spoonfuls into a kettle and put it on to heat. Coffee was one thing—the careful roasting and aging of the beans, the elaborate presses and percolators used to brew different varieties, the complexities of flavor unearthed by different methods of selection or preparation—but there seemed something deranged about simply boiling up some weeds from the garden and declaring them fit to drink. How … primitive.

“You’re still here,” she observed in a mutter, opening a cabinet full of cups.

“Evidently. I don’t truly require a drink, Mrs. Strong—I simply wished to … make amends.”

“Mr. Hewlett,” she murmured, sounding very much as though she were explaining something to a small child, “it would be extremely difficult for me to care less about you, your half-assed apology, or what you are or aren’t drinking. This is for me.” A round little sieve went into the top of the cup. “My hands need something to occupy themselves with that doesn’t involve tearing out my own hair.”

“Please don’t. Your hair is too lovely by far.”

The words fell out of his mouth almost before he’d thought them and certainly before he could think of anything to follow them up with. Mrs. Strong’s head turned just enough that he could see the line of her jaw curving over her shoulder and the brush of her eyelashes along her cheek. If only she would laugh or scoff or frown or say _anything_ ; but all she did, after a moment’s pause, was pour the steaming tea through the sieve, lift the cup to her mouth, and blow softly over the surface before taking a sip.

The liquid was a pale amber, almost entirely clear, and the steam curling around her face like the loose strands of her hair had a scent that put him half in mind of grass clippings after a rain and half of a book left in the window so long that its binding had bleached to brown, its pages all gone yellow and muslin soft, and of the dust motes that might swirl in the light if one were to open it. He imagined turning the pages and coming across a pressed flower dried as delicate as crepe; imagined it crumbling at his touch.

Mrs. Strong inhaled deeply of the steam and closed her eyes. “ _Why_ are you still here.”

“… I fear I have yet to accomplish my aim. While I concede, madam, that it may not have succeeded on every level of allegory, I must take issue with your dismissal of my apology as—as you put it— _half-arsed_. I assure you that I am wholly, entirely sincere.”

“My apologies, sir. You’re right. You are a whole, entire ass.”

To that, he could only emulate her: close his eyes and let his mouth pull tight into a flat, sardonic smile. Drawing upon all his vast reserves of self-control to keep his voice level, he said, “Mrs. Strong. Despite manifold incentives to the contrary, I have done my utmost to address your complaints in a respectful and professional manner. I have apologized for my behavior at Whitehall in every way I know how. I’m afraid I do not understand what else—”

“Then let me be clear.” The cup thunked onto the counter, and by the time Edmund had opened his eyes, her body was leaning across at him and her face was very close to his own. Entirely too close. Her eyelashes, for that matter, were entirely too long, and that seemed a very ridiculous thing to be noticing just now.

“I did not come to Whitehall to dispute your behavior. I did not throw that disgusting old coffee in your face because I thought you’d been rude. It is your signature on that godforsaken piece of paper that forms the basis of my _complaint_. I can withstand mockery. I have withstood that for years, and more than once at the hands of Richard Woodhull. But it’s—” Her voice caught; her head fell, and free from her gaze, he stepped back, watching the way her hair fell over her face as she slumped down onto her elbows. Her voice wavered and cracked as she whispered, “It’s _cruel_ , this business of destroying _my life_ for mistakes my husband made. He took everything from me and left me nothing but trouble. And this.” One hand smoothed over the countertop. “I’ve done nothing but make the best of what I was left with. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I am … _sincerely_ sorry that you are being punished for your husband’s actions. But this is a matter of law, madam, not of cruelty or kindness.”

Her finger began to trace the grain of the dark wood. “And now you give me a mere thirty days before my livelihood is gone. What do you call that, if not cruel.”

He couldn’t help but notice that her other hand had wandered up to her hair, twining around in the loose strands around her face and, he dared to say, beginning to demonstrate some potentially hair-tearing behavior. A hesitation; then, as unobtrusively as he could, he reached for her discarded cup of tea.

“Mrs. Strong, allow me to—ah—” Hooking a finger round the handle, he slid the cup in front of her with one hand; with the other, he gingerly, ever so very carefully, took hold of her wrist. Her head jerked up, but she made no move to protest as he drew her hand down and pressed first it, then the other, against the sides of the cup. “I’m going to trust you with this,” he informed her with a sternness that he hoped she could tell was only teasing. He allowed himself to show the faintest of smiles just to be sure. “I would rather not lose another shirt, but if the alternative is that you do yourself harm, well. I suppose I’ve never much liked this one anyway.”

She was staring at him as though he were the oddest thing she’d ever seen. The tea, still hot, made the ceramic cup glow with warmth; it seeped through her hands and into his own, still pressed lightly atop hers, and only then did he realize how he’d let them linger. The skin of her knuckles was rough against his palm, her hands small enough to enclose entirely within his own.

Immediately, he snatched them away.

“I’m so sorry.”

Mrs. Strong swallowed. “What for?”

He had only meant it regarding having touched her, but before he could say as much, something held his tongue. “… Everything.”

Her eyes met his through a veil of lowered lashes as she lifted her gaze. The look she gave him this time was measured and calm in a way that was not the cold disdain of earlier nor the hollowness of grief; simply a look. Her head inclined in the slightest of nods.

The scant light slanting through the window blinds had warmed from a midway blue to the hazy gold of a winter’s early sunset. Night came so swiftly in this season; he longed for the return of summer and the sun. Anything for this day to be over and far behind him.

Mrs. Strong had looked to the window as well. “Good evening, Mr. Hewlett,” she murmured and lifted the cup to her lips.

Edmund nodded, keeping his head bowed for a moment in respect, and refused to look back as he strode swiftly to the door. With his hand on the knob, however, he hesitated.

“Before I go, Mrs. Strong. May I offer one final thought?”

The rim of the teacup lingered at her mouth, but she didn’t take another sip. Listening, then, to what he had to say.

“As much as I wish I could tell you otherwise, I’m not certain that anything can be done in regards to this shop. You do not have grounds, in my opinion, to contest the foreclosure; however, I recall from—uh—from my review of your, your finances—as I recall, the shop is not the only possession on which your husband took out loans. I believe there were cards, and perhaps ... your flat?”

Even from across her room, he could see the way her grip on the cup tightened, see the stiffness in the movement as she lowered it slowly to the counter.

“In my professional but off-the-record opinion, unless you wish for a repeat performance of today, it is essential that you find your husband so that in the future, _he_ may be held accountable—not you. I don’t presume to understand the particulars of your, ah, your relationship, but … from a purely rational perspective … You may wish to consider divorce. Otherwise, I fear you’ll spend the rest of your life tethered to a man whose debts you’ll have to drag behind you like a … sea anchor. I would never wish further hardship upon you.”

By the way Mrs. Strong inhaled deeply through her nose, eyes closing and shoulders lifting, he halfway feared he was in for another bout of screaming. Instead, she said, very levelly, “Thank you for the advice, sir.” Her eyes opened and met his. “Please don’t come back here again.”

“Oh, yes, I quite agree. It would be extremely unprofessional to have further contact off the record while your case is pending.”

“Please don’t come back again _ever_.”

“… Ah. Yes. Yes, of course.” Edmund fumbled behind himself for the doorknob. “Um—good day.”

The last he heard as he left was the bell above the door jangling. The last he saw was Mrs. Strong, tilting her cup towards herself and peering inside as though she hoped to find an answer written within.

 

\---

 

Anna had never believed in signs or omens or the machinations of fate. She had never worried about a planet in retrograde nor planned her day around an astrology column’s advice. When Abe broke off their engagement, she had never thought, _Of course, Aries and Libra, polar opposites, it was never going to work between us, was it_. The only signs leading up to that eventuality had been the slow changes in Abe’s behavior and the vast cold that grew between them, not any providential symbols left by some divine hand to warn her or guide her away.

As for reading tea leaves, she had tried that exactly once. With Selah.

“What do you think—Ceylon? Darjeeling? Does it matter?”

“Anything with decently sized leaves, I would think—here, let’s use something cheap—”

“So we drink it first, and then—”

“Good lord, Anna, don’t swirl it _that_ hard, you’re flinging tea _everywhere_ —”

Laughter, fleeting touches, warmth. Cradled up against together with her head resting against his shoulder and one leg draped over his, Anna and Selah looked into their cups.

The shape of the wet leaves, so thick and black against the pure white porcelain, was beautiful, in a way—beautiful in the way that a drop of ink blooming through water was beautiful, or in the head-tilting manner of a Jackson Pollock or a particularly evocative cloud. But she had never been very good at seeing creatures in the clouds or finding faces in the patterns of plaster walls. The shapes might be interesting in and of themselves, but did they _mean_ anything? She turned her cup round and round, frowning into its depths.

“Any luck?”

“I appear to have a future in abstract art. You?”

Selah looked down at her, a wing of dark hair falling over his right eye. As ever, his expression was serious and intent, but she knew him well enough to make out all the shades of tenderness in his eyes and fondness in the crooked cant of his mouth. He set his own cup aside. Anna sighed into his throat as his nose nuzzled her hair, lips brushing across her forehead, and melted into the warm, fabric-rough slide of his body against her own.

“I already know what my future holds,” he murmured, kissing her temple. “It’s here. Forever. With you.”

Anna had never believed in signs.

But signs and omens were one thing, while logic, paying attention to one’s surroundings, and having the good sense to read the writing on the wall were quite another. All she wanted to do after Hewlett finally left was curl up in bed, wrenching the covers all around herself and over her head so that she didn’t have to see Selah’s side, and sleep till a thousand years had passed and no one was alive to remember that such a person as Selah Strong or Edmund Hewlett or Anna herself had ever even existed. Instead, she washed her face over and over again until her nose no longer looked quite so red. Then, she went for a walk.

And waited small and frail and shivering in the dark until Abigail opened the door.

“Anna?” The spill of light from within her apartment reduced Abby to a silhouette, gold-edged and hazy; Anna ducked her head against the glare and closed her eyes. At once, Abigail’s tone changed. “Oh lord. Oh, honey, what’s wrong?”

She let herself be drawn inside by the hand, eyes still shut tight. “Cicero, go to your room. Don’t give me that look, _go to your room_. Here, Anna—” Abby led her down onto the sofa next, their knees bumping as they sat side by side with Abigail’s hands clasped tightly around her own.

Abigail’s hands were as callused and rough as her own, familiar and welcome. So much rougher and smaller than the last hands to have held Anna’s only an hour or so ago. The ones that had taken hold of her with such surprising gentleness and pressed skin to skin with such warmth, all the humid heat of the teacup radiating through her flesh and into his. Anna swallowed, then squeezed the other woman’s hands in return.

“Abby. Do you still know that guy you used to date? The sort of— _paramilitary_ one, the one who joined up with that reconnaissance contractor. What was it … The Rangers.”

“… Yeah, I still know him. Anna, please talk to me, hon.”

Anna opened her eyes to the sight of Abby’s face close to her own, her full mouth and straight brows both pulled tight with concern. Her eyes, however, were steady and intent.

“I need you to put me in contact with him. I think … I think it’s well past time I found Selah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quotes from the show:  
> Hewlett: “Trouble? No trouble; I simply wish to drink…” (S2E1); “Men of blood…” (S2E4); “tethered to a man…like a sea anchor” (S2E2); “I am sincerely sorry you are being punished for your husband’s actions…” (S1E5).  
> Anna: The general structure of several phrases from the same convo in S1E5: “I’m not here to dispute the attainder…,” “It’s cruel, this business of…,” and “And now you give them a mere seven days…”
> 
> Latin notes:  
> Alea iacta est: “The die is cast.” Supposedly uttered by Julius Caesar as he led his army across the Rubicon, initiating the Great Roman Civil War. In other words, there’s no going back now!
> 
> Audentis Fortuna iuvat: “Fortune favors the bold” / “Fortune helps those daring.” Spoken by Turnus in Book 10 of the Aeneid, a Latin epic written by Virgil in the first century BCE about the founding of the Roman nation by a ragtag bunch of Trojan refugees. In many ways, it’s Virgil’s pro-Rome response to the two most famous Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey (codified about 800 years earlier by Homer). Books 1–6 follow the narrative/thematic structure of the Odyssey, while books 7–12 do the same with the Iliad. It’s sort of an unauthorized sequel to the Iliad written from the bad guys' point of view (since the Trojans are the heroes this time around, Virgil makes them more noble and some of the Greeks much more villainous) and also a piece of historical fiction that nabs bits and pieces from throughout myth, history, and literature, expands on them, and weaves them into this whole massive new myth arc about why Rome was totally the coolest empire ever, man. It's pretty great.


	5. Chamomile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your POV go? An outsider's perspective on our two favorite idiots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the longer-than-usual wait on this one, everybody. Transitional chapters like this are such a bitch to write; suffice to say, struggles were had. Anyway, here we go!

The match flared alight in her hand with a hiss and a sputter of flame. She held it near to her mouth for a moment, just close enough to the thin skin of her lips that the heat bordered on discomfort and the warmth sinking into the square planes of her face had a dry, flat edge to it, like the beginning of a sunburn. Just before it threatened to singe her fingers, she let it fall into the fireplace at her feet.

The paper was slow to catch, but she could wait. Gathering the lacy hem of her nightgown around her knees, she sank to the rug, folded her bare feet beneath herself, and watched with steady patience as the corners of the pages curled and the edges blackened. Young she may be—far younger than most of her colleagues, younger than her husband and younger than his brother had been when he died, younger than the woman he still could not seem to stay away from—but for as long as she could remember, Mary had understood the value of patience.

The other virtues all had their places, of course. Heavens knew how often she called upon diligence at Whitehall, working long into the night so that no one, not the junior associates who liked to leer and flirt nor the senior partners who saw her as little more than a pretty paper-filer, could ever claim that she owed her career to her looks or to the Woodhull name. Temperance called her home early other evenings as she tried constantly to refine the balance between career and motherhood—a balance that others were so quick to criticize no matter what she did. Humility helped her to hear what was valid in their criticism, charity to forgive them for what was not, and kindness to face every day armored in courtesy and charm.

Chastity and all its connotations—honesty, purity, commitment to the path below one’s feet—she held to on sleepless nights passed listening to Abe snore on the far side of the bed and worrying on that same question she’d been worrying since even before they were married, since the first time she saw the way he looked at Anna Strong.

But patience—patience was a lady’s true weapon and the one thing that all these men with their constant need to push and demand and fight could never seem to understand. For time and time again, Mary had found that if she simply waited, sweet and smiling and so easy to underestimate, those same men would offer up more information of their own free will than they ever would have if she’d pressed.

So, on the matter of Anna Strong and her eventful visit to Whitehall, Mary had bided her time.

Mr. Baker broke first.

“Her shop? You’re certain she’s losing the shop?” She leaned across the table in the break room, pinning her friend with an intent stare that made him squirm. Baker always seemed too large for the narrow kitchen where they took their lunches, and the way he had to hunch at the table with his elbows tucked in at his sides and his knees banging the underside of the table only enhanced the look of vague discomfort creeping across his usually smiling face.

Anna had stormed in on Friday afternoon. It was now noontime Monday. Bless dear Baker’s heart, he hadn’t even lasted one business day.

“It’s not as though I _meant_ to overhear, Mary. Or to read the file. But I sorta dropped it on the way to Mr. Woodhull’s office, and the papers, well, they were all out in the open, you know.” With a downward quirk of his heavy brows, he managed a rueful smile. “Just my luck, I s’pose. Always walkin’ in when I’m not wanted.”

Mary’s mind hummed as she settled back in her chair. She forced her manner to gentle, her voice to soften back to the demure tones she’d worked so hard to cultivate. Ladies didn’t pry. Ladies simply mentioned interesting topics of conversation in an offhand manner and waited for someone to take the bait. “How unfortunate for Mrs. Strong. Heavens know she’s had her trials. Still, I wonder why she took the matter out on poor Mr. Hewlett.”

Baker had nothing more useful to contribute to that line of discussion than an apologetic shrug. That was unfortunate, but not unexpected; the man had an excellent talent for stumbling upon office gossip accidentally but—perhaps because he’d never needed to develop much of a sense of intentional curiosity—never actively sought it out. No, the answer to _that_ question, she’d anticipated from the start, would almost certainly have to come from one of three possible informants: Mr. Hewlett himself, Richard, or Anna.

But ever since that day, her father-in-law’s face had gotten twisted up in a perpetual scowl that scarcely cracked even when she showed him the adorable video she’d taken on her phone of Thomas toddling around the park. Richard did not often lever those stony silences against her, but she’d watched Abe endure enough of them over the years to know that when he really got his heels dug in, Richard could keep a bad mood going for weeks, even months. Mr. Hewlett, she’d thought, surely couldn’t last that long. When he’d first joined up with the firm and introduced himself to them all with all that stiff-backed, stern-faced, distant English propriety, she hadn’t known what to make of the man at first; had, in fact, been rather wary of him, certain that he was the sort of boss who kept a mental tally of each employee’s most minute failings in order to ambush them during performance reviews and raise negotiations. Fortunately, it had taken only one wine-soaked dinner party at Richard’s house to teach her that Hewlett was extremely susceptible to three things:

Good wine.

Flattery.

And a veneer of saccharine domesticity, in which she, of course, fulfilled the role of the loving wife, doting mother, and dutiful daughter. In that way, he was no different from Richard, Mr. Baker, or even her husband. Men saw in her what they wanted to see in all their women: something more like a pet than an actual human being. Harmless, uncomplicated, and untouched by bitterness or heartache or rage.

So, three days after Baker’s confession and nearly a week after the incident, she dressed in a pale pink sweater dress that made her look even younger than she was, stopped by a gourmet café on her way to work, and fashioned her features into a bright and careless smile before tapping on Mr. Hewlett’s office door.

“Yes, yes, the door is open!”

Hewlett was leaning over his desk with his laptop open in front of him and a scowl on his face to rival even Richard’s. He didn’t have Richard’s impressive jowls, of course, but the wide mouth and heavy crow’s feet lent their own edge to the expression. He didn’t look up until Mary set his cup down in front of him.

“Oh … Mary. Good morning. Thank you.” He took the cup, but not before drawing a hand over his face and letting it rest at his forehead, thumb pressing into his temple. The bags under his eyes looked deeper than usual. Stress, lack of sleep, or both? Mary put on her best concerned frown and perched on the edge of the chair in front of his desk.

“Is everything all right, Mr. Hewlett? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look absolutely exhausted.” He peeked at her from below his hand with the hint of a smile.

“My dear, seldom is _everything_ ‘all right.’ What a fine world that would be.”

“Anything I can help with, then.”

“Not unless you’ve suddenly developed a keen talent for negotiating securities mergers between recalcitrant, indecisive children.” With a deep sigh, he waved his cup in the direction of his computer. “ _Some_ people, I swear. If their life’s ambition is to grant me my first gray hairs, they may yet succeed.”

That was … not entirely the angle she’d been hoping to play, but she could work with it. “Mr. Hewlett, I can’t imagine there’s anyone in this company more qualified to handle it than you. I know you’ll work it out.” She smiled at him until he slenderly returned the gesture. Then, while she still had his attention, she let her face fall gently into somber and soft. “I’m relieved, in fact. You’ve—forgive me for saying it, but you’re usually so put together, and lately, you’ve just seemed … I don’t know. I worried there was something deeper at fault.”

His cup touched his lower lip. Then stopped. He narrowed his eyes at her over the rim. “Deeper?”

“Personal, I mean. More than the usual stress of the job. Not that this job doesn’t have its drama, heaven knows … The clients, the pressure, the politicking … to say nothing of what happened last week.”

The cup thunked back down to the desk. “I appreciate your concern, Mrs. Woodhull, but it truly is not necessary in the least. I simply have a great many things on my plate. Things which I really must be getting to, I’m afraid.” He raised the lid of his laptop and put on his reading glasses with a very definitive air. “Thank you for the coffee.”

If pressed to give a figure, Mary would have estimated that Mr. Hewlett would take no more than two weeks to break. Maybe two and half.

Three weeks passed in an agonizing charade of normalcy, and as the fourth week rolled around, Mary thought she might shriek.

Hewlett had become withdrawn and intent, never taking a moment out of the day to stop by her desk for a chat or to fawn over pictures of Thomas, begging off from every dinner invitation with the excuse that he just had so very much to do. Richard, too, came by the house less often and lingered with his grandson for less time, though that might have had as much to do with Abe’s presence as anything else.

Not that Abe spent much time at the house. She was growing almost desperate for him to return to school just so that she wouldn’t have to pass every day with the dread of arriving home in the evening, her neck stiff with a tension headache and her calves aching from ten hours in high heels, to find nothing waiting for her but Aberdeen cooking dinner for Thomas and a note from Abe saying that he’d gone out.

Was that why she cared so much? Those nights, those absences, those nights of sleeping on far sides of the bed with their backs to one another and the only sounds Abe’s heavy breathing and the crackling of the baby monitor? If Abe hadn’t been in town when it happened, would she have felt that same instant, gutting panic that hit her the moment she saw that woman in Whitehall, so incongruous in her blue jeans and boots against those pristine walls, and if Abe weren’t still here now, would she have given a second thought to Anna Strong? Why should Mary care what happened to that woman or her shop? Why should she care what it had to do with Hewlett? Why should she feel this itching need to _know_ everything about the situation as though it could have the slightest impact on her life?

And why could she not shake this terrible dread, rooted, she realized, in the natural fear of change: a fear that what was happening here had altered the status quo in ways she did not fully understand, upsetting the fragile balance that had existed between her, her husband, and his old lover for so long—and introducing so many unknown variables and horrible possibilities that she dared not even consider.

All these questions, all these mysteries with her husband at the center, and she simply could not risk not knowing the answers.

But with Hewlett, Richard, and Abe all stretching even her patience to a thread, it seemed fate had left her only one recourse.

The one she had hoped, more than anything, to avoid.

 

\---

 

“… and so small,” complained the large man with the Dutch accent as he squeezed his way out from the storeroom in the back of the shop. In his wake trailed his wife, considerably more slender, and, several paces back, Anna herself. Somehow, in the weeks since Mary had last seen her, she seemed to have aged quite a few years. Or maybe it was only that she used to stand taller within her own shop and move with the ease that comes from comfort in one’s space, the sense of being in charge of one’s surroundings. Now, her manner was closed, and her hunched shoulders made her seem smaller as she lingered in the doorway with her arms crossed tight over her chest.

“No coffee, no beer, no _space_ —no wonder this place has no customers! Think what work we will have to do. Close for refitting, redo the menu, rebrand, put out new marketing—think of the expense!”

“It would not be so bad,” mused the wife. She ran her hand over a table in such a proprietary manner that even from Mary’s place clear on the other side of the shop, where she stood next to the front door with a clipboard in her arms, Mary could see Anna’s shoulders square as her spine stiffened. “A good location, a good building … We close, redecorate, refit, then reopen as a coffee shop. Gourmet, a boutique. The place was not well-run, is the problem. With proper management, no reason it cannot be turned around.”

“Better not waste _your_ time with it, then,” said Anna darkly, and Mary cleared her throat more loudly than was necessary, before Anna could start throwing fists as well as shade.

“Well! Thank you _so_ much for coming out, Mr. De Young, Mrs. De Young—” She herded them toward the exit with many a smile and reassuring nod. “We’ll be in contact closer to the auction. Have a lovely day …”

As the door shut behind them, Mary bowed her head against the sight of her own face reflected thinly in the window and took a moment to collect herself. Lord give her strength—and patience, and charity, and all the rest—no matter what turns this conversation took.

Of course, Anna threw her off course before she’d even begun.

“So. Were you randomly assigned to witness my humiliation, or did you volunteer?”

Mary took a deep breath in through the nose. Then turned. The other woman had moved into the main room of the shop and was watching her without expression. “I volunteered. But not to be cruel.”

“Really.”

“Do I look like Richard?”

Anna squinted at her, then tilted her head, as though considering the issue. Mary tapped the toe of her purple pump hard on the floor--a maneuver that, coming from less of a lady, might have been considered a stomp.

“Oh, _very mature_ , Anna, thank you.”

To Mary’s surprise, a hint of a smile flickered across Anna’s mouth. But only flickered. Mary wasn’t sure she could even have managed that. How unnerving this always was, this dance of theirs: standing with so much space and so much history between them and pretending that they hadn’t both let the same man trail his lips along their thighs.

Still, the thread of tension strung between them drew her forward when Anna turned and headed back towards the storeroom. “The reason I volunteered is—”

“Whatever it is, it will have to wait.” Anna’s voice echoed slightly as it reached Mary from the back room. As Mary crept closer, she could just make out the deep teal of Anna’s coat moving beyond shelves and shelves of boxes arrayed in a labyrinth that smelled of dried flowers and rain. A grunt and a thud, like something heavy hitting the floor. “I have— _oof_ —I have an appointment down the street. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave.”

Careful cardboard chaos awaited Mary in the back room. Stepping around one bay of shelves—laden with cardboard boxes wrapped several times over in cellophane, most of which were labeled innocuous things like _verbena, hibiscus, mint_ and at least one of which bore the rather more ominous _gunpowder_ —she found Anna kneeling amidst a ring of relatively small boxes, small enough to heft in one hand as long as your hands were decently sized. Mary’s were not, but Anna seemed to be having little difficulty as she snatched up the little boxes one by one and packed them inside a larger, deeper box.

 _Rosehip. Darjeeling. Irish breakfast. Earl Grey. Honeybush_. Each smaller box had been labeled by hand.

“What are you doing with those?”

Anna nearly dropped something called Karha as she startled at Mary’s voice. Or maybe it was just that she hadn’t heard Mary draw so near. With a bark of incredulous laughter, she demanded, “For God’s sake, what is with you Whitehall types and not knowing when to _leave_?”

“Whitehall types?”

“Like _you_. Like _Hewlett!_ Barging in here and just—” Anna cut herself off with a frustrated snarl. Head bowed, she pushed at the air with both hands, as though pushing something invisible away, then snatched up the Karha once more. Her voice was soft and husky as she continued, “Mary, I truly don’t mean this personally, but I haven’t the time for whatever it is you want. I’m running late as it is.”

Heavens knew Anna could be stubborn—she was among the most stubborn people Mary had ever had the misfortune to meet, in fact, and Mary had married into the _Woodhulls_ —but there was no way that even she was going to be able to fit all those little boxes into the big one. Spatial geometry just trumped stubborness in this instance, was all. As Anna tried to find an opening big enough to stash the rooibos, Mary seized her chance.

“Please, let me.” The clipboard went into her purse and her purse under her arm as she knelt and swept the few remaining little boxes into her arms before Anna could protest.

“What—Mary, give that—” She made a grab for the chamomile, but Mary rocked back onto her heels and stood up so quickly that she nearly fell back down again. The cluster of boxes, however, remained in her arms.

“Oh, for once in your life, Anna, don’t make this difficult. You can’t possibly carry all those on your own.” To be honest, even the few Mary had hold of were heavier than she’d expected—heavy enough to make her heft them against her chest for better support. Thank the Lord she was used to carting a wriggling toddler around. “Where’s your appointment? I’ll walk you.”

Apparently, the idea of Mary being _helpful_ was such a foreign concept to Anna that all she could do was stare, looking ever so slightly afraid. Ha. Mary couldn’t say she didn’t enjoy that just a bit. At last, Anna’s hand inched towards the roll of packing tape at her side. “Not so far from here. Ten, fifteen minutes’ walk. I … Thank you, I suppose.”

 _There_. Wasn’t that nice? Even Anna Strong, it seemed, could be capable of good manners now and again.

She could’ve picked a better day to take a walk, though. The sky was the color of dishwater, the clouds the color and consistency of cement; with evening already coming on fast, little sunlight could peek its way through. The tops of the tallest buildings all blended seamlessly into that expanse of streaky gray. With the cold of late winter still lingering all around, few other pedestrians crossed their path. Mary found herself simultaneously shivering and sweating into her designer scarf as she struggled to keep up. Anna may have had more to carry, but she’d also had the admittedly good sense to wear well-worn jeans and a pair of sturdy, flat-soled boots. Mary’s pencil skirt limited her stride to just a fraction of the other woman’s, and the heels of her pumps were not best pleased with the damp, occasionally slippery sidewalk. As Anna strode down the street with the big box hefted up on one shoulder and never a backward glance, leading them along streets unfamiliar to Mary, Mary followed at a sort of skittering trot.

Not once did Anna look back at her. Even when they had to wait at crosswalks and Mary managed to catch up, the other woman’s gaze would drop to her shoes, drift after passing cars, lift up to glance at the clouds—but never at Mary. No matter how she tried to catch Anna’s eye. With every avoided glance, Mary found herself growing more and more uneasy.

“Have many people come by to look at the shop?” Mary bit back a wince as soon as she’d said it, but she hadn’t known where else to begin.

Anna glanced away from the crosswalk signal, which still showed an orange hand, just long enough for Mary to catch a glimpse of her eyes. Then away again. “A few. Each one better than the last. The De Youngs may have been the most charming couple yet.”

Mary hesitated. It was so much easier to be false where Anna was concerned—to hide her true feelings behind polite smiles. Yet Mary found that she wasn’t even lying when she said, “I would never have wished this on you, Anna. Any of it. Please know that.”

At last, Anna looked at her fully. And in her wide, dark eyes there was a vulnerability and a guilt that sent a sliver of true fear into Mary’s heart.

Then the signal turned to walk, and Anna turned away again.

“I—I appreciate you saying that. Really. But I never blamed _you_. I wouldn’t hold you responsible for your father-in-law’s actions, nor those of the people he does business with.”

“You think it’s _his_ fault, then.”

“Isn’t it?” With a snort, Anna hefted the box more securely and turned enough to show Mary a wry twist of the lips. They were approaching a section of street far more open than the usual shop-lined avenues; trees hung above them, shielding them from the oppressive sky, and beyond them Mary could glimpse an expanse of deep green grass. “A word of advice from someone who’s been playing the Woodhulls’ games much, much longer than you have. Never lose that man’s favor. Which is to say, never speak a word against him or express an opinion that isn’t his own. I was too fond of doing both those things, and just look where it’s got me.”

Mary swallowed. “And Abe’s favor? Don’t I at least have that?”

With the light so thin and gray, it was hard to say whether Anna had always been so pale. For a moment, she looked as though she might respond; but then they were rounding the corner, and, amidst the trees and emerald lawn, a huge building spilled out before them.

Mary stopped in her tracks. “Is—what is this place?”

In answer, Anna nodded her head toward the vivid silken banners strewn down the front of the facade, on which were emblazoned the initials MOS. _Museum of Science_ , she realized a moment later, when she could make out the stylized, antique lettering engraved into the pediment well enough to recognize that the Vs were meant to be read as Us. A broad sweep of shallow marble steps led up to the colonnaded front of the museum, which was capped, oddly enough, by a massive dome.

The banners, almost garishly bright against the pure white facade, were advertising the upcoming opening of a new exhibit. Dimly, Mary supposed she’d been aware that the museum existed, but museums in general had never been Abe’s cup of tea, and Mary preferred the fine arts. Never had she realized that this one was so near. With much clattering of heels, she rushed to keep up with Anna, who was already ascending the stairs.

“ _This_ is your appointment?”

“I have an acquaintance who works here,” Anna called over her shoulder, beginning to sound out of breath at last. “She’s— _uff_ —helping me find buyers for my stock.” At the top of the stairs, just outside the great glass doors, Anna levered her box down and dropped it with a heavy thud. Mary could hear the other woman’s shoulder pop as she stretched. She supposed she must have looked a bit lost as well as rather sweaty, for Anna went on, “That cheap bastard can take the shop, but the tea’s still mine, and damned if I’m not going to recoup some money on it. The café manager here expressed an interest.”

Somehow, it had not entirely hit Mary until that very moment that all this really, truly was happening. No more lemon verbena to brighten a winter’s day, no more passing by the shop and looking through the window for a glimpse of Anna, as though to make sure that she was still there, where she was supposed to be, where Mary could keep track of her. It seemed … wrong. Mary had never known Anna to do anything else; could not imagine what she might do in the future.

Anna got the door open enough to wedge in a foot, then knelt, heaved the box back into her arms, and pushed through. Mary barely slipped through behind. Each click of her heels echoed as they made their way across the high-ceilinged atrium to the information desk, then, following the receptionist’s lead, to the café tucked into a corner off the mineral gallery.

Only a couple science enthusiasts graced the surrounding tables. They claimed one for their boxes of tea as they waited for the manager, both of them attending to the task of stacking the little boxes with more attention than was probably necessary so as to avoid conversation. After a few minutes, however, Mary could take it no longer.

“Richard might do something like that.” She said it abruptly, with no reference to their earlier conversation, but she could tell by Anna’s slight nod that she followed. “We both know how he holds a grudge. But for what it’s worth, Mr. Hewlett never would.”

A slight wince tensed up Anna’s eyelids at Hewlett’s name. At last, Mary felt sure it was time to press. “He came to see you, didn’t he? Before, you said he barged in, that he wouldn’t leave. What did he want?”

Clearing her throat, Anna looked to the table. Her hands ran absently over one box. Chamomile. _Patience in adversity_ , Mary suddenly recalled. The language of flowers. Kneeling amidst the flowerbeds with Mother as a child while Mother pruned the stems and taught her the meaning of every bloom. Very softly, Anna said, “To apologize. In a way.”

Equally soft, Mary ventured, “I rather think _you_ ought to apologize to _him_.”

“Miss Anna! My sweet girl!”

The moment between them fractured, and Mary stepped back as well-dressed woman with steel hair swept between them and gathered Anna up into a painful-looking hug. The younger woman was chuckling, however, almost like her old self, as the stranger kissed her on each cheek.

“Poor thing, look at you. So thin, so pale. I know it is hard lately, but you must take better care.” Clicking her tongue like a mother hen, the woman brushed some of the hair back from Anna’s face before turning her smiling attention to Mary. “When they told me two ladies were here, I thought you’d brought Miss Abby, but no! Who is your friend?”

This, at least, Mary knew exactly how to do. “Mary Woodhull,” she said brightly, extending her hand with the sweetest, most winsome smile in her arsenal. It faltered slightly as her hand was seized up in a slightly overenthusiastic grip.

“Mercedes Rios! Curator, researcher, and explorer constantly in search of a decent cup of yerba mate—a rare thing in this country, I promise you. And now they close the only shop that can do it justice? It is a crime.”

“Mrs. Rios is my most loyal customer,” Anna murmured, letting a bit of a smile show through. “You never come in on Fridays, Mary, so I suppose you’ve never crossed paths. Mrs. Rios, Mary’s my lemon verbena.”

“ _Oh_. I _see_.” The older woman gave Mary a look that seemed laden with meaning, though, for the life of her, Mary couldn’t figure out what. Good lord, what had Anna been _saying_ about her? She could feel her face heating up, redhead skin utterly failing, as usual, to hide a blush, but already, Mrs. Rios was squeezing her hands in another crushing grip and saying, “Well, Miss Lemon Verbena! I hope you will not miss the gala! Miss Anna has invited you already, of course.”

“I’m—I’m sorry, the what?” Mary couldn’t help but notice that Anna’s smile was melting fast.

Keeping one hand in place to continue crushing Mary’s bones, Mrs. Rios pointed with the other to the banner strung along a nearby wall—a smaller twin to the ones hanging outside. “My new exhibit. Grand opening night, we have a wonderful party, resplendent of music and alcohol and science—all the important things in life. Still weeks and weeks away, of course, but tickets sell out fast!”

“Oh.” Mary looked to Anna for guidance, but all her unlikely ally had to offer was a grimace of dread. “Oh, that sounds—lovely.”

“Then you will come! Excellent! Here …” She dug around in her jacket pocket for a moment and pulled out a stack of glossy paper strips held together by a rubber band. The topmost one she slipped out and pushed into Mary’s hand. “A free pass for you. You look like you know many stylish people, yes? Be sure they come as well.” She turned to Anna, who managed to hitch a smile back in place by the time the older woman had turned around. “Miss Anna and Miss Abby have already promised to attend. So you will be among friends!”

Mary and Anna exchanged a singularly uncomfortable look.

Anna cleared her throat, then, with an exaggerated cheeriness that would not have fooled a child, said, “Well! Mary, thanks so much for your help. Truly. I’ll ...” The upbeat tone faltered. “I’ll keep your suggestion in mind.”

“Where is the manager? That woman, always late for everything, I swear. Miss Anna, you stay here. I will find her.” Mrs. Rios swept away again, leaving Mary’s hands tingling as the circulation returned. Mary rubbed the one with the other and wavered, unnecessary and unwanted. She had permission to leave. She ought to leave. Nothing good could come of saying what she what so desperately to say.

Yet she found herself saying it anyway.

“Anna, I have to ask. One thing. And—and you don’t have to answer, not if you don’t want to, or, what I mean is, say no if the answer is no, but otherwise, you don’t have to say anything, and I won’t … I promise I won’t make a scene.”

Every muscle in Anna’s body seemed to stiffen; every line in her spine and shoulders grew taut, and by her stance and by her silence, Mary knew that Anna already knew what she was about to say. Mary took a shuddering breath.

Her voice barely trembled. She could pride herself, at least, in that. “Since Abe and I have been married, have—have you—”

“Yes.”

No inflection, no louder or softer than what was normal, no elaboration, no explanation, no hesitation. As though she’d been waiting to say it for days.

But her expression was drawn and her voice wavered as she continued, in a whispered rush, “Just once, it was only once, I swear it. I know that doesn’t make it better ... but ... ”

“... Oh.” Even to her own ears, Mary’s voice sounded brittle. As though it weren’t echoing properly within her own head. Everything—the tables, the tea, Anna Strong—seemed so far away. “... Thank you for telling me.”

And, without another word, Mary turned around and left the museum in demure, steady steps, her heels clicking delicately and her stride no longer than her skirt would allow.

Steady and demure, she walked past the emerald lawn and the trees and never felt the cold.

Steady and demure, she kept her eyes straight ahead, lips slightly parted, purse dangling half off her shoulder, and scarcely registered the people she passed or the path her feet took as they carried her back towards the familiar shadow of Whitehall. Even as the sky darkened and the first needle-thin drops of sleet stung her skin, she simply walked. Not until she was in front of the office doors, reaching out to push open the darkly shadowed glass, did she catch sight of her own reflection and pause.

A pale, petite thing in coral and cream, her damp hair beginning to fall out of its artful bun, her outfit selected with such care. Each article of clothing chosen not only to flatter her appearance but to suggest her personality—a personality spun together out of pastels and pressed flowers and lace. She looked like a little girl. No, she looked like a little girl’s porcelain doll, propped up on a shelf for display. The sort of toy that’s lovely to admire from afar but that no one actually plays with because it looks so easy to break.

Her hand fell from the door. Some of her things were still inside, but it was getting late, it was getting darker and colder by the moment, and all she wanted was to go home, take Thomas from Aberdeen, and hold him for hours and hours. Beyond the awning that hung over the door, the rain had started up in earnest. It rattled on the roof and splashed the toes of her shoes. Trapped between Whitehall and the rain and wanting nothing to do with either of them, she compromised by staring blankly at the blurry figures moving along the street but couldn’t find the strength to join them.

How long she stood there, she couldn’t say. But she jumped at the sound of an umbrella opening very close by.

“I’ve never _heard_ of a human successfully parting the rain simply by staring at it,” said a familiar voice, in a tone she had come to know well: that very stern tone he only used when at his most lighthearted. Smiling down at her from behind the turned-up collar of his overcoat, Mr. Hewlett extended an arm to hold his umbrella over her head. “But I suppose one never truly knows until one tries. Perhaps I can assist.”

He looked a bit better today, less harried, the hollows beneath his eyes and cheeks less pronounced, though perhaps it was only that the natural daylight was softer on his skin than the office’s fluorescents. At any rate, it felt as though it’d been a long while since she’d heard him tease, and she found she didn’t know quite what to say to it. As her silence dragged, his smile slipped; and by the time he began to venture, “Mary, are you quite …,” she couldn’t stop herself from blurting:

“Have you ever been in love?”

His mouth snapped shut. Then opened again, hesitating in an expression both wary and deeply confused. “In _love?_ No, I … Attachments, certainly, yes, but I … Ah. No. No, I can’t say I’ve ever been so lucky.”

Mary couldn’t stop the gasping laugh that burst out of her. “Luck has _nothing_ to do with it. _Falling_ in love, maybe. People fall in love by accident every day. _Being_ in love is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Her hands clenched around the strap of her purse, twisting the leather. “Everybody likes falling in love so much, but they don’t want to do the work of _being_ in it, and that is just—it’s just _not fair_. I try so hard, Mr. Hewlett. Every day. I try so hard to keep us all safe and happy and together, and that’s enough for me, that’s all I need—but what good is it? Nothing I can do will ever make me enough for him!”

To say that Mr. Hewlett looked startled would’ve been a bit of an understatement. In fact, he looked very near to mumbling some excuse and running away. She supposed she could hardly blame him if he did. He rocked on his heels and glanced side for a moment, out at the street, and she was sure, then, that he would flee—

Instead, he stepped close enough to hold the umbrella over them both.

“My dear,” he said, his tone far gentler than any Mary had heard him use before, “let me walk you to the train.”

Nodding gave her an excuse to keep her head lowered long enough to wipe quickly at her eyes. A gentle hand on her shoulder steered her into the rain.

The station was only a few blocks away. They walked most of the first one in silence but for the hollow patter of rain on the umbrella. Embarrassment had Mary’s face flushed and downturned all the way.

“I’m sorry,” she said after half a block. “I’m sure you didn’t want to hear any of … that. It’s not right to put my troubles on you.”

“Nonsense.” Mr. Hewlett’s voice was crisp, though his smile, when she looked up at him, still seemed a bit strained. “After all, it was Plato, I believe, who said that friends have all things in common. I’m certain he didn’t mean ‘all things except their troubles.’ And … I should like to think that you and I are friends.”

Were they? The thought had honestly never occurred to her. Mr. Hewlett came to her dinner parties, yes, chatted with her at work … but that was because he was _Richard’s_ friend. And when Richard and all the other seasoned businessmen at those parties got to laughing together over their wine, she still felt the way she had years ago when her parents hosted dinners where she was the only child in a sea of adults. That any of them might see a silly girl like her as a peer, let alone as a friend, had never seemed likely.

“... Of course we’re friends.” The half-truth came more easily than she’d expected. “I’m glad we are. I still don’t have very many around here, to be honest.”

“You’re not a native? I was under the impression that the Woodhulls, at least, were endemic to the area.”

“My first time here was for my fiancé’s funeral. Thomas, Abe’s brother. That’s where we met. Romantic, huh?” She let slip an unladylike snort. “I wonder which is worse, in the end: having only a short time with someone utterly you love, and who loves you just as much, then losing them, or staying together for years and years even after the love’s all died?”

“I don’t believe I’m qualified to make that judgment. In my entirely amateur opinion, I suppose that the cruelest thing would be ... a story without an end. Positive or negative, closure is, at least, closure, and allows a person to close the book on that chapter of life and move on. Rather than dragging the past ceaselessly on behind.” They were nearing the final block. “After all … For the perils of _that_ , one need look no further than what’s happened to Mrs. Strong.”

All the cups of gourmet coffee. All the little hints and nudges she’d used to try to get him to talk about that day, and now, with no prompting, here it was. When she no longer wanted to hear it at all.

Mr. Hewlett cleared his throat into the silence. “I … understand that you’re acquainted with the lady.”

Even with the umbrella, Mary still felt damp and chill. She wrapped her arms around herself. “A bit. Not as well as some.” Anna, too, she had met for the first time at Thomas’s funeral. Not really met, exactly. Seen. A pale oval face framed all around by black—black hair, black eyes, black dress running down to black boots—looking on unblinkingly from several yards away as Abe embraced Mary for the first time. His cheek brushing against hers and the curve of his neck so warm as they each told the other how sorry they were for their loss.

“I must admit, I’m still not … entirely at ease with the way all that was handled. Ah, with her case, I mean, as well as with—” The hand that wasn’t holding the umbrella windmilled vaguely. “—you know. When she dropped by.”

“None of that was your fault.”

“Yes, yes, you’re quite right. Even so. It’s been difficult to shake.”

A streetlamp flicked on as they passed underneath. The rain was easing up, she thought, but it was late enough now that even if the clouds did clear, the sky would still be dark. They rounded a corner, and the subway station came into view.

“Is she—” Mr. Hewlett cut himself off; “I don’t know if you would know—or if, perhaps, Abraham might, but—if you do know. Is she well? Mrs. Strong, that is? Not _happy_ , I wouldn’t expect her to be _happy_ at the moment, but … I can’t help but wonder how she’s holding up.”

Mary thought of Thomas waiting for her, little Thomas with his white-blonde hair, and closed her eyes tightly for a moment. “I wouldn’t worry yourself, Mr. Hewlett. That woman always lands on her feet.”

When they were nearly at the doors, the rain petered out with a few more taps on the umbrella, and the clouds thinned enough to reveal a wedge of dusty night sky. At the edge of the curb, Mary tried to hop over a puddle but still managed to get her ankles splashed. Kicking the drops off her heels, she sighed.

“This winter, I swear. I couldn’t be more ready for spring.”

Mr. Hewlett smiled thinly as he collapsed his umbrella. “It’s been a trying season for us all, I think. But I do believe the spring shall be all the sweeter for it.” Something must have caught his eye, for he looked up, then, and at the sight of the sky broke into a wide smile. “ _Ah_ , see! What a lovely night, now the rain’s cleared. Look, there’s even—!” The smile stretched out into a grimace. “Oh. No, that’s a satellite, now that I look at it.”

She followed his gaze to the single point of light shining in the dark blue sky. It was blinking at regular intervals. “I’ve learned not to get my hopes up. It’s too bright here for stars.”

“Right again, Mrs. Woodhull. At least, not without the aid of a very good telescope. I imagine they have rather better luck at the museum.”

She was lost until she remembered the huge dome. “The museum just south of the park?”

“Yes! Precisely the one! You know it?” She had never seen his grin quite so unselfconscious or his eyes quite as bright. “I’ve been meaning to visit for, well, ages, but there never seems to be the time. Is it as impressive from within as from without?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. Sorry, it’s not really my thing.” All at once, she remembered and fumbled for her purse. “I have a free pass—would you like it?”

“Oh, no, there’s no need—”

“Please, I’m never going to use it, Mr. Hewlett. I can promise you that.” Her fingers dug through her purse until they brushed glossy paper. She thrust the ticket toward him. “It’s for some sort of grand opening to-do. You’d enjoy it far more than I would.”

“Really, I couldn’t—”

“I don’t want it!” Even the knowledge that it was in her purse reminded her of Anna, and thinking of Anna made her want to be sick. “Just _take it. Please_.” He was beginning to look at her strangely again, so she forced her voice to calm. “As thanks for walking me. Please.”

Clearly for no other reason than to pacify her, he finally took the ticket. “Very well. Do take care, Mary.” He held the door open for her. “I know it’s difficult. And I don’t believe life becomes any less difficult with time. But I also believe that, if you can simply hold on, all will turn out for the best.”

It sounded like a lie, and it probably was: the sweet sort of lie that people with the best intentions tell one another every day. But Mary knew what was expected of her in response.

So she smiled as though his words could do any good.

 

\---

 

That night, after Mary got home, she kicked off her dripping heels, swept Thomas up into her arms, and held him in her lap for a very long time, murmuring soft responses to his nonsense chatter and combing her fingers through his hair.

When Abe came home, they chatted pleasantly over dinner about things of little import. She watched him gallop around the house with Thomas on his shoulders and a laugh on her face, and as usual, she retired to bed with a book hours before he did.

Not until the early hours of the morning, when she could tell by the way Abe snored that he was in his deepest sleep, did Mary slip out of bed, the silk of her lacy nightgown whispering as it shifted over her legs, and set to work.

The loose floorboard Abe didn’t know she knew about creaked when she lifted it up with a finger, but not loud enough to wake him. Inside lay his journals, leather-bound and unread—she wouldn’t do that to him, not without cause; boxes full of old photographs, some of them digital prints, some of them faded Polaroids blooming with sepia and rose where the color was starting to blur; some small toys she supposed must have been his, when he was a child, or maybe his brother’s, and which she’d never entirely been able to divine the significance of; and stacks and stacks of old letters, handwritten on note paper and printer paper and stationery.

She started with those. It wasn’t exactly a surprise to see how recently some of them were dated, but the intimacy obvious in every word of even those dated well into their marriage made her heart burn with pain.

When she’d been through it all, she collected her finds in a neat stack, replaced everything else beneath the floorboard, and headed downstairs.

Every letter signed by her hand; every photograph that featured her face; as she watched every physical scrap of Anna Strong’s presence in her house, in her marriage, and in her life slowly bloom into flame, she curled her feet beneath herself on the threadbare old rug and made herself a promise. Perhaps Abe would never love her the way he loved Anna. There was nothing she could do about that but accept it. But she did not have to accept losing him to her; she didn’t have to accept her presence or any reminders of it; and she didn’t have to accept her role as some sort of victim here, the pathetic, unwanted little wife. Not as long as she could hold her family together by sheer force of will.

Mary pulled her hair over one shoulder, watching the flames dance, and promised herself that whatever else life threw at her, she had the patience to outlast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Just my luck, I s’pose. Always walkin’ in when I’m not wanted." Quoted from S1E10. Oh, Ensign Baker. Bless you and your impressively awful timing.
> 
> Next time on this weird fever dream of a fic: Springtime! New characters! And, gods willing, less angst! The mood round here has just been BLEAK, y'all, am I right? But brighter times are on the horizon.


	6. Jagertee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the girls take a road trip, and alcohol, metaphors, and friendship abound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jagertee: A mixture of black tea, rum, red wine, plum brandy, orange juice, and spices. Literally, “hunter tea.”
> 
> A note on SETTING, which I have thus far badly neglected developing. Where the heck does this fic take place, anyway?! In short, an imaginary city called Setauket. From the outset, I wanted to stay in New York, like in the show, but I also wanted an urban setting. The real Setauket is, to this day, hardly a bustling metropolis, but since I have never been to NYC or any other city in New York, I decided to just pretend as though Setauket were a mid-sized city complete with museums and public transit and all that fun stuff. So, now you know.
> 
>  _This_ chapter, as it happens, doesn’t take place in any version of Setakuet. But I thought it a good time to explain.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit gaudy, all this?”

“All what?”

With her free hand, Anna gestured out the window toward the crowd gathering across the street. Her other hand was too busy tapping restlessly on the counter to be bothered.

Hands, hands; she’d developed a thing, in recent weeks, about hands, always moving them, holding onto her own arms in an effort to keep still. Stillness was armor. Not like _wearing_ armor; stillness was the process of _becoming_ armor in and of herself, hardening herself until her skin shined to steel, her face smoothed into a mask, and everything that was real about her—all the laughter and horror and rage—retreated so deep that even she sometimes forgot it was there.

Did that make her a coward, then? That she had chosen to hide rather than continue to fight? There was a time she had thought herself a soldier, marching the streets armed with her cardboard signs and her ideals ... But somehow, the battle had ended before she even noticed, and she found herself stranded alone behind enemy lines. Hiding behind her hard and brittle mask even as she watched the bank auction her livelihood away. Locking away her words behind tight-pressed lips as Mr. De Young waxed arrogant yet again about all his grand plans for transforming her silly little tea shop into a hip cafe. Smiling and thanking him— _thanking him—_ when he so very graciously offered to let her keep working there. Oh, _thank_ you, sir. _Thank_ you for this opportunity, that’s so very _kind._

Cowardly. But perhaps it was an issue less of cowardice and more of necessity—survival of the fittest at its basic and most cunning. Her environment had changed, her niche destroyed; all around her, predators lurked, ready to kill, to maim, to devour, the instant they recognized her as prey. Therefore, do not appear to be prey. Appear to be one of them—an ally, compliant and submissive. Adapt to survive. Waiting, all the while, for an opportunity to break free.

Culminating, now, in this: sitting elbow to elbow with Abigail in a crowded little restaurant in a city two hundred miles from home, one hand tapping on the tabletop while the other pointed across the street. Abby followed with her eyes.

“Oh. The costumes?”

Four and a half hours on Amtrak had left a dull glaze over Abigail’s usually bright eyes. Anna reckoned she must look just as weary. God knew she wasn’t keen to find a mirror and put that theory to the test.

“The costumes, the tours, all of it. Faking accents and talking in bad Jane Austen-style prose. I know they mean well, but it all just seems … mm. Cheap, maybe? Or, no. _Flippant_ , I suppose, is what I mean.” Her fingers kept tapping. It sounded a bit like a battle march, that rhythm. Fitting. “This was a _war_. A long and devastating war. People fought, people sacrificed, people died, and they did it because there was so very much at stake. The same ideals we’re still fighting for today. Representation, personal liberty, the right to be treated with equality and dignity. However flawed and incomplete the expression of those ideals was at the time, it still set the tone for the entire history of our nation. And for all the activists in this country since, it remains one of the most respectable foundations we have for the idea that dissent—even violent dissent—against the state can be not only justifiable, but _heroic_. This city more than anywhere else should feel the gravity of that legacy, and yet—yet they’ve reduced it all to, what? Tourist traps. One big maze of tourist traps and bad theatre.”

Across the street, a Continental soldier stood on the edge of the Boston Common, dramatically waving his toy musket as he lectured to a flock of tourists kitted out in North Face jackets and knock-off Harvard tees. Did the Continental tour guides ever get into squabbles with the Lobsterbacks who patrolled Faneuil Hall, she wondered? _That_ might be interesting to see.

Abigail’s sigh hinted that she was probably rather too tired to care. “I dunno, I mean. At least folk are learning the history, right? No harm in makin’ it fun.” With the snap of a compact mirror, she yet again set to fussing with the paisley tignon wrapped around her hair. Which looked fine, of course. As fine as it had looked thirty minutes ago, when they’d walked out of South Station, and as fine as it’d looked on the train, and as fine as it was ever going to look, which was excellent, because this was Abby, after all, and Abby would look beautiful in a paper bag. With a sigh of her own, Anna placed her hand over Abigail’s.

“You look lovely,” she murmured. “He doesn’t deserve you a bit. Never did.”

Abby managed a smile, but it was watery. “Hey. I’m doing this for _you_ , girl. Gotta score points wherever we can, right? Especially seeing as, uh, with the choice of location, you know …” She trailed off into a shrug. “Right now, I think he’s winning.”

All around them floated the warm and earthy scent of coffee. Of course he’d picked a coffee shop to meet in. No, sorry; an _espresso bar_. Far be it from her to confuse the place with anything so run-of-the-mill as the Starbucks or Dunkin down the street, not when it was such a prime example of _precisely_ the sort of snobby little hipster hive that Mr. De Young was determined to turn _her_ shop into. From a quaint, quiet haven for quaint, quiet people like herself, into … _this_. Anna shuddered, hunching her shoulders against the clamor of Mac-toting undergrads all around, and sulkily bobbed the teabag in her untouched cup of Earl Grey. _Teabag_. They made it with _bags_ here. This was the sort of people she'd been reduced to dealing with.

It was a subtle jab, him telling them to meet here, and it left only a shallow cut, but it stung all the same. Not that it was a surprise. She’d tried her best, back when Abby was dating him, tried her best to be friendly, but she supposed she hadn’t been as good at her armor back then, and all it really came down to was: she and Akinbode had never gotten along.

The door opened, and a shadow fell between Anna and the sun, obscuring, for a moment, the features of the man who stood there; but she recognized the shape of him and the way Abigail fidgeted at her side.

Tall and strapping and wary-looking as ever, Akinbode stepped through the doorway and glanced around. As soon as his eyes lit on Abby, the scowl slid slowly into a grin.

“Heeeeey, little lady. Don’t you look fine today.”

“ _Excuse_ me; I look fine every day.” As much as she tried to hide it, a grin was playing at Abby’s lips as well.

Akinbode pulled up a chair, dragging it across the floor with a screech, and planted himself at Abby’s side with a warm gaze aimed her way. The look he gave Anna was considerably cooler.

She summoned up a smile and hoped it reached her eyes. “It’s so good to see you, Akinbode. How have you been?”

“Save it, Anna. I got plenty to do, and you didn’t come all the way up here just to chat.” Without so much as a by-your-leave, he reached across the counter and nabbed Anna’s untouched tea. She was pretty sure he didn’t even like tea. “So. Old Selah ran off, huh? Guess he got tired of watchin’ you make eyes at that Woodhull kid. Typical for Selah. He was always just an ordinary guy always in over his head.”

As he took a generous sip of the tea—she hoped he burned his tongue, though if he did, he powered through it—Anna exchanged a look with Abby. The other woman didn’t look particularly enthused, either. They’d thought this out; they had a game plan, a strategy; but so much depended upon whether they were dealing with thoughtful, playful Akinbode or aloof, arrogant Akinbode. Abigail tended to bring out the former in him. Anna ... not so much.

Behind his back, Abby shrugged. Very helpful.

“I understand that the company you work for now does … contract work.” Anna leaned forward into Akinbode’s space and dropped her voice to a murmur. Her hands clasped tightly together, almost praying, but only because the urge to fidget was so strong. “Security, intelligence, the recovery of assets, and of ... Well. Of people.”

“You always gotta sugarcoat, huh. _Bounty hunting_ , is what you’re trying to say. You need a hunter.” The line of his shoulders as he stretched, his ribcage flaring and waist lengthening, made her think of a mountain lion readying to pounce. On what, or whom, she couldn’t say. “But bounty hunters don’t hunt where there’s no bounty. So what’re you willing to pay us to track your man down?”

Anna took a deep breath and refused to avert her eyes from his. “What’s your rate?”

Akinbode matched her stare, and after a moment, the look in his eyes flickered into something warmer. Better that he had stayed cold. This look he gave her now, it was far too near to pity. “From what I hear? More than you can afford.” A passing student’s messenger bag thunked into his chair as she headed to the door, jostling him enough that the tea nearly spilled; Abigail put a hand over his before he could react. He settled for a glare. “These kids are driving me crazy. Come on, let’s take a walk.”

Spring had come at last, but in New England, that only meant so much. The trees on the Common were blooming, yes, the elms flowering white and the cherries pink, but a thin crust of snow still lingered in their shadows, and Anna kept her hands tucked beneath her arms for warmth as the three of them meandered into the park to no purpose that she could discern, except, perhaps, to wear her and Abby down even further. While Abby moved ahead and took the tall man’s arm, Anna let one hand drift into her pocket and brush against the crumpled paper within. An envelope, worn and creased, bearing two names: her own as the addressee, and the other above a return address located in Boston, MA.

“Cicero says hi. Wanted me to ask when you’re going to come back to Setauket and teach him how to pitch a curveball, like you promised ...”

Light conversation, such as about Cicero, of whom Akinbode had always seemed fond: one of the tactics they’d discussed on the train. Good on Abby. Anna let them talk for a while, occasionally attempting to interject with some comment of her own; at best, Akinbode ignored her, and at worst, he glared. Before long, however, the sound of their voices, their easy laughter over matters that were, in the scope of it all, so fucking unimportant, threatened to make her itch right out of her skin. At last, she darted around Abigail and planted herself in the middle of the path, forcing the others to stop.

“I don’t have the money,” she blurted. “Not right now. But I’ll _owe_ you, Akinbode, and whatever else you may think of me, have you ever known me to go back on my word?”

The flow of pedestrians continued around them. He eyed her for a moment and took advantage of the pause to casually pour the top inch or so of tea out into the grass. When he reached into the breast of his coat, Anna stiffened despite herself, but he only withdrew a round, leather-wrapped flask.

“Can’t say. I don’t recall you ever making me any promises. But all right—let’s say you owe me.” The liquid in the flask was a dark amber and so strong she could smell the cloying sweetness of it even from two places away. Oh _no_ —teabag or no, that was perfectly respectable Earl Grey, what was he _doing?_ Earl Grey and—was that whiskey? No—rum? Was nothing sacred?

As soon as he’d filled up and tucked the flask away, he began walking again, forcing Anna to walk backwards apace. “What’re we talking? Cash with interest? Property? Favors? ‘Cause I’m trying to think here, Anna, and aside from good ol’ US currency—which you seem to have an awful hard time with—I can’t think of anything you might have that I’d even want.”

The heels of her boots scuffed against the uneven bricks as she backpedaled, all her coordination focused on not tripping. She changed tacks. “You make it sound like such a burden. All I’m asking is this one little thing. It’s not as though Selah’s a criminal mastermind—you said it yourself, he’s just an ordinary man. An ordinary man in over his head shouldn’t be a challenge to sniff out. With your experience and resources, how hard can it be?”

Her boots stopped dead, and she refused to move any further, forcing him to stop as well. All her fear and worry must have been showing in her face, but she cared nothing for pride anymore if pity would move him to listen. “ _Please_. I know we’ve had our differences, but—I beg you. It would be so little trouble for you, and it would mean so much to me. More than I can possibly say. Think how grateful I would be, how grateful Abby and Cicero would be. Would it really be such a bother, doing a simple favor for a friend?”

“For a friend? Maybe not. For you …” He glanced down at Abigail, standing at his side with her eyes on his face and her delicate hands looking so small along his arm, then gave Anna a shrug. “Look, I’m sorry you came all the way up here for nothing. But a man’s gotta make a living, you know? I don’t work for free.” A healthy swig of his concoction seemed to represent a full stop at the end of the discussion, as far as he was concerned. A better piece of punctuation, in Anna’s opinion, would have been to smack the thing out of his hand.

“I’m not asking you to work for free. I’m asking you to consider this an … an investment, if you will.” Her fingers curled in the fabric of her sleeves. “Say you’ll think on it, at least.”

“I’ll think as long as you like, but that’s not gonna change my mind.” The way he turned to face Abby put his shoulder to Anna, effectively shutting her out of the conversation. “Now. Don’t tell me you came all the way up here just to head back home the same night? You gotta at least take a picture with me, or the guys’ll never believe I met up with a girl so pretty.”

Was Abby smiling like that to butter him up, or because she was truly falling for his same old tricks? Good lord, Anna couldn’t even tell anymore. “Cicero’s sitter’s paid up through tomorrow night.”

“So you’ll be needing a place to stay, huh?”

“We booked a _hotel_.” Abigail took a step toward Anna, forcing Akinbode to turn to face her once more. “Thought we’d have a girl’s night out, then do brunch in the morning. You should join us tomorrow. Shouldn’t he join us, Anna?”

“Of course. We can talk more.” He matched Anna’s cool stare. She couldn’t say she didn’t enjoy his annoyance, but they couldn’t let his mood get too dark. Placing her hand on Abigail’s arm, she continued more quietly, “But, actually, Abby, I—I’m afraid I might have to beg off on the night out. I’m sorry to be boring, but honestly, I’m exhausted. I know it’s your first time here and all, but ...”

As expected, Akinbode broke in. “Hey now, no worries. I can show you the sights, Abby. It’ll be fun. Give us some time to catch up.” Incredible how he could smile so warmly at Abby while being so aloof to everyone else. But then, Anna supposed there were those to whom she had been equally cold.

Before they parted ways, Abigail drew Anna aside, and they huddled close to speak without being heard. “I’ll work on him,” Abby whispered. “Meet back at the hotel? Unless—were you still gonna try and see your friend?”

Anna’s hand drifted back to her pocket and the creased envelope within. “Never answered any of my calls, the asshole. Probably he doesn’t even live here anymore. But I reckon I ought to try.” They hugged. “Godspeed, darling. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

Abby blushed and ducked her head to hide a smile. “What about any _body?_ ” When Anna made a face, Abby giggled and hushed her. “Kidding! I’m kidding, I wouldn’t. Really. You just watch, hon. I’ve got this under control.” Their foreheads pressed together. “Don’t give up hope.”

 

\---

 

Hope, Anna decided, sitting alone on the Common as the sky grew dimmer and the air more chill, was a very fine thing, as long as one didn’t expect anything to actually come from it.

She pulled the envelope from her pocket and smoothed it out on her knee. The paper was stained with flecks of what might have been food or beer, and the handwriting was messy and rushed, printed in all capitals. The postmark was dated to well over a year ago. Probably too much to hope that he could have stayed one place that long. Still, it was the most recent address she had.

So:

Northeast through the Common to the red-brick line of the Freedom Trail, she walked, edging past a slow-moving tour group led by a colonial woman who must, Anna thought, have been very cold in nothing but a dress and cape;

Past the Granary with its obelisks and crumbling stones; past the tourists who milled around within, congregating around the graves of Hancock, Adams, Revere—all tripping over themselves to get to those dead white men while totally ignoring where Phillis Wheatley and Crispus Attucks rested only meters away;

Across Government Center and past Faneuil Hall, where the Regulars patrolled; past the taverns on Union Street and the bakeries on Hanover; past the old Italian men sitting in folding chairs on the sidewalk until she was near enough to the waterfront to hear the gulls and smell the vinegar brine of the sea, there on the far eastern rim of the North End, where the warren of red-brick apartments overlooked the harbor and the fog-shrouded ghosts of islands far from shore. Inside a narrow building off a narrower alleyway, Anna paused to catch her breath on a fifth-floor landing that stunk of mold. One last time, she checked the address on the envelope one more time. Then, she approached the door and giving a tentative knock.

It was near dark outside by then, the window on the landing offering almost no light and the dirty yellow ceiling bulb scarcely any more. She waited several minutes before knocking again, growing slightly anxious amidst all the torn carpet and grime, but no sound came from within. Another disappointment, then. Bitterly, she folded the envelope and returned it to her pocket. This whole trip really had been for nothing.

In the deepening darkness of dusk, the alley looked a bit seedier, now, than it had only minutes before. She hunched her shoulders and hurried toward the safety of the main street. May as well text Abigail to see how things were going there, in case she needed to be rescued.

Anna turned onto the main street and barely registered the shadowy figure heading in from the cross-street. Nor did she register the sound of his footsteps or the fact that they were getting louder until, suddenly, something slammed into her back and strong arms encircled her from behind.

Anna’s boots lifted off the pavement, and her heart leapt in her chest. Instinctively, she thrashed, to no avail—oh God—her feet kicked out—boots striking something solid, but the arms stayed tight, oh God, and she opened her mouth to scream but could hardly even breathe, and then—and then—

And then, her captor was laughing, and a familiar voice rang in her ear.

“ _Lookit here!_ Lookit what I found!” Her captor’s arms constricted around her ribs, and Anna squeaked. Bristly hair tickled her ears and the back of her neck. “Don’t ya know it’s dangerous round these parts, Annie girl!”

She was going to kill him. The instant she was free, she swore, she was going to _kill him_. Or at least kick him in the balls. With the last molecules of air in her lungs, she managed to choke, “ _C-Caleb! Put—me—down!_ ”

He complied, but not before spinning her around, giving her a dazzling but rather streaky view of the street. Brick and cement and—was that another person there? Too fast to see—then her feet touched the ground and he leaned forward to plant a prickly kiss on her cheek while he still had her captive. She stumbled free but didn’t even have time to wind up for a good groin kick before large hands grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around.

Caleb was utterly unchanged from the last time she’d seen him, as long as that had been: eyes keen and glittering, curls a mess, all bundled up in rumpled, hardy clothing that smelled a little of sweat and more than a little of fish. His heavy boots still had the laces half undone, and he still wore the same leather coat he’d had since high school. The only change, so far as she could see, was that his beard had possibly managed to consume even more of his face.

He grinned wildly and gave her shoulders a shake. “Anna Strong! Christ’s sake! Look at ya! What’re you doin’ here? Finally decided to run away with me, eh, embark on a life of lawlessness and adventure? You minx!”

She shoved him hard in the chest, making him stumble, but had to fight not to grin just as wildly. Her heart was still hammering and she’d been _this_ close to pissing herself, sure, but damned if he didn’t have a way of making her laugh. “If you ever answered your _phone_ , you’d already know! Phones, Caleb! People use them! Have you been made aware of the fact?”

“Meh. Don’t be boring. My phone went over the side of a crabbing boat, musta been five months ago now. Never got around to buyin’ another. Getting back in touch with nature, you know? Off the grid, like. It’s fun!” His lively eyes flicked toward something behind her, and his grin stretched even wider. “Plus, it makes for some nice surprises, don’t it? You’re the _second_ hottie ta show up on my doorstep this week.”

“Careful, Brewster. That’s harassment.” At the sound of the second voice, Anna spun around so quickly she nearly fell back into Caleb. Leaning against a building only a few strides away was someone considerably taller, considerably calmer, and—with his respectable cardigan and khakis—considerably better groomed. He was smiling too, but so slightly that someone who didn’t know him might not have noticed. “You’ll scare her right off.”

No shoving and yelling and spinning in circles; not with Ben. With Ben, Anna simply ran up threw her arms around his neck at the same time he wrapped his tight around her shoulders.

When Anna pulled back, she saw that he was smiling truer now, though he still looked guarded around the eyes. Too serious for the boyishness of his sweet face. His hair had grown out a bit. Out of the army, then? Or just on leave?

“When did you get back?” she demanded, and hated that she sounded reproachful when she’d only intended concern. “What are you doing up here, why haven’t you come home?”

“It’s ‘cause he loves me best, o’course.” Caleb rested his elbows on her shoulders from behind. Ben rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s why. I’ve only been in a few days, all right? I was going to head down to Setauket next week.” They must have looked an odd set, the three of them all standing so close together with Anna sandwiched between them, but even in this unfamiliar place, she couldn’t have felt more at home. What was it about old friends that they could, even if just for a moment, push everything dark out of her mind and make her feel like a kid again, young and hopeful and free?

At least, until Ben continued, “I thought I’d convince Mr. Off-the-Grid here to join me, then we’d ambush you and Woodhull, get the whole gang back together … Just like old times, you know.” That handsome smile began to wane, and his dark brows drew in. “Anna? Is something wrong?”

Abe. She mustn’t think of Abe; had gotten very good, lately, at not thinking about Abe. But now all the regret and turmoil and sadness was bubbling up again, and she had to press her face back into Ben’s shoulder to hide it.

“I’ve just had the most incredible idea,” she murmured into his cardigan. “Let’s continue this conversation whilst getting profoundly, embarrassingly drunk. All in favor?”

 

\---

 

“ _Coffee to the face_. That’s badass, Annie,” remarked Caleb once she was done.

“Anna, I’m so sorry,” said Ben, gazing at her with hound-puppy eyes. His voice was a low murmur beneath the steady hum of the tavern where they sat. Anna could only shake her head, pushing a little puddle of spilt beer around the table with her finger.

“Not your fault. No one’s fault but my own, is it. And Selah’s, maybe. But then, Selah managed to keep things afloat all those years.”

“Still, I wish you would have said something. I would’ve helped, you know we both would’ve helped.”

“Kinda takes you back to your social justice days, though, don’t it?” Caleb mused, leaning back so that his chair balanced on its hind legs. He looked utterly at home amidst all the faux-colonial décor surrounding them and had already surpassed both her and Ben by an entire pint. “The coffee. Sort of a _fuck-the-patriarchy, we-are-the-99-percent_ kinda thing, yeah? Nothin’ says _establishment_ quite like an old white guy in a suit.”

“He isn’t really that old,” Anna admitted uncomfortably. Mr. Hewlett—and what she’d done to him—was … not a subject she cared to think about. It always put her on edge, filled with an odd sensation that she couldn’t bring herself to examine too closely. She had the uneasy suspicion that if she did, she would realize it was shame. “And don’t even think that way, Ben, I could never shove my troubles onto you. You’ve had enough of your own. With the war and all, and.” She hesitated. “With Sam.”

Ben’s expression flickered, but almost too briefly to be seen. Then he was shaking his head, insisting, “Screw that. You’re my _friend_. I _want_ you to shove your troubles on me. This is all so—Anna, I don’t know what to say.”

“Yeah,” Caleb agreed somberly, then drained his third beer. “It’s a fucking shitty mess. Still. _Badass_.”

Their table was cluttered with glasses, and Anna’s cheeks were warm and tingly from all the beer in her veins. The alcohol had helped the words come out. She’d told them everything—about the shop, about Whitehall, about Richard and Hewlett and Akinbode; the only detail she’d left out was Abe. That, she reasoned, was as much for his sake as her own.

“I don’t feel badass.” Her voice was so soft and strained she wondered if they could even hear. “I feel—I feel like a bully. And a failure. I can’t even—” Her voice cracked; too much talking, too little booze. Not a good balance, that. She tipped back the last of her stout and shook her head to clear it. Laughed unsteadily into the glass. “Can’t even manage a night out without getting maudlin! Oof. New idea, boys. Listen up. Brewster!”

He snapped theatrically to attention when she pointed at him. “Your job is to ensure none of us is ever lacking in booze. You can start by standing us the next round.”

“Oh, a clever ploy to get outta buyin’ your own drinks, Annie. I see how it is.” But he stood even so and gave an exaggerated salute before swaggering off toward the bar.

Ben seemed amused, watching them both with that careful little smile that hid whatever he was really thinking. Sweet Ben, earnest Ben, brave, calculating, complicated Ben; even after a lifetime of friendship, there were times she couldn’t begin to guess what was going on in his head. She wagged a finger at him next. “Your assignment is by far the most critical, Major Tallmadge. Any time we start down a road toward something terrible—” Her hand lowered to cover his, to soften the blow of her next words, “—like Sam, or Selah, or Thomas or my shop or the war … Your job is to find something, _anything_ else for us to talk about. Please.”

“And you? What’s your assignment, General Strong?”

Caleb announced his return by slamming three drinks down in a triangle in the center of the table, then shoving each in the proper direction: Guinness to Anna, Sam Adams to Ben, and a bottle of Dogfish Head for himself. Anna sipped the creamy head off her glass before answering. “What is it ever? Doing my level best to keep you boys out of trouble. Not that I have _ever_ had much success with that.”

 

\---

 

If Anna had been sober enough to feel surprise at anything, she surely would have been surprised to find that it was Ben—Ben, who took everything he did so seriously—who failed in his duty first.

At least, as far as she could remember. And he must have made a good run of it, at any rate, because by the time it happened, there was a sky above them the black of full night and the lapping of waves in her ears, and the wind slicing off the harbor was so cold that she let herself burrow into Ben’s side for warmth. Their feet dangled above water as they sat on the side of the pier, watching Caleb throw rocks into the sea.

Ben smelled uncharacteristically of fish. Oh—he was wearing Caleb’s leather coat. When had _that_ happened? Her mind wove its way back. She remembered the tavern, remembered the deep, almost chocolatey taste of her beer, remembered talking—reminiscing, mostly; the past was the only place where conversation reliably stayed safe. Remembered swaying in her seat as Ben filled her in, without much detail, on his most recent deployment; remembered laying her head on the table and gasping with laughter as Caleb regaled them with stories of his most recent adventures. All of them wild, most of them doubtless embellished, and several of them astoundingly filthy. Remembered Caleb slipping a final bottle of beer into the inside pocket of his jacket and winking, a finger held to his lips, when he saw Anna watching.

Then outside again, the sudden cold shocking her into awareness. She remembered holding onto Caleb’s arm as she let herself spin in a slow, swaying circle over the red-brick pavement, remembered falling back against him and catching sight of the sign above the tavern door. _Headquarters of the Revolution_ , it proclaimed. The very watering hole where the Sons of Liberty once met; where Paul Revere waited before taking his fateful ride; where those anonymous patriots conspired to run out to the harbor and destroy all that perfectly good tea. As though it were the poor tea’s fault that the colonies were being taxed! And, yes, hurrah for civil rebellion, but _still_. What a waste.

Not that any of that mattered, of course, because the _real_ Green Dragon Tavern had been torn down ages and ages ago, hadn’t it? Gone, long gone, and this little faux-colonial pub with the soldier statue out front was only a reproduction. An _imposter_ , really, tricking decent people into thinking they’d found someplace special when really it was no more authentic than the Continentals shepherding those tourists along the Freedom Trail.

Lies. Layers and layers of imagination and reinvention, which were just pretty ways of saying that it was all lies, and didn’t she have to lie enough in her own life without being surrounded by it up here? Was it like Abby said—that what was the harm in dressing up the truth a bit, if that was what it took to get people interested, to get people to remember? So make a game of war, make it more marketable, more fun, put people in costumes, pick and choose which sites to draw a red line between, as though they _had_ to make a fantasy of it because the truth was too dreary and dull. Real life often was dreary, yes, she supposed. And dull. And if she could escape into a fantasy version of her own life where everything were a little brighter, a little more meaningful, a little more neat and organized and intent on some _purpose_ that might make her feel as though all the dull and dreary bits had been worth it in the end … Maybe she _would_ take that offer that in a heartbeat. Even if it were false.

Caleb was a shadow moving at the far end of the pier, a solid patch of darkness in front of the glittering sea. Anna’s eyelids drooped. She rubbed at one eye, realized that her face seemed to have progressed beyond merely tingly and into numbness, and prodded her cheek to make sure it was still there. It was. That was nice. She rubbed it against Caleb’s jacket and glanced up at Ben. The lights from the next wharf over had limned his face in gold. She couldn’t tell whether he was watching Caleb or simply admiring the sea, but he looked so peaceful either way, so young and so at ease. Good. He deserved a moment of peace. She should have let him linger in it.

Instead, of course, she spoke.

“You haven’t been back to Setauket since Sam’s funeral, have you.” Ben stirred but said nothing. “I didn’t realize at first, but it’s been that long, hasn’t it … Sorry. I just feel so alone back there with everyone gone.”

“Everyone except Abe.”

Her turn to be silent. With a sigh, Ben tilted his head to lean his cheek against her hair. “Whatever’s going on with you two …”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“... you’ve _got_ to get past it, Anna. It’s not healthy for anyone. Not for you, not for Abe, not for Selah, and not for those of us stuck trying to be loyal to all three of you at once.”

“... Even if we’d never been anything more than friends, it still wouldn’t be like when we were kids. Not with Mary around. I’d still be alone.” A world in which she and Abe had never been more than friends. Would that have been better, or was it worth it to have had that short time together, even if losing his friendship was the price? She’d missed this, after all: leaning against Ben, letting Caleb sweep her off her feet; physical affection with no expectations, no tension, no danger of complications. She’d had that platonic ease with Abe, too. Once.

Anna closed her eyes and let the breeze chill her face. “Do me a favor, Ben?”

“I can’t help you dispose of Mary’s body. But the old mill pond is probably your safest bet.”

“ _Har_. Come _home_. Just for a little while. Keep me company. In general, I mean, but also—um.” There was still a thread loose on her sleeve. She picked at it. “I sort of need a … date.”

Ben’s _ha!_ was loud enough to make Caleb, down at the end of the pier, turn and look. “Gee, Anna, I didn’t know you felt that way. Haven’t you had enough love triangles in your life?”

Her elbow jabbed his side. “As if you aren’t already married to Lady Liberty herself! I wouldn’t dream of getting in the middle of _that_.” Anna drew one leg up onto the pier and twisted to face him, her leg tucked beneath her and her elbows on her thighs. “I got roped into attending this sort of … _party_ by a customer of mine, and—she means well, really she does, but she keeps, um. She keeps asking if I’m bringing anyone. Not asking in, you know, an innocent way. Asking with much wagging of eyebrows.” She wiggled her own to demonstrate. “Her way of trying to cheer me up, I suppose … Anyway. I’m afraid that if I show up alone, she’ll spend all night trying to set me up ... and _that_ can only end in misery for everyone involved.” Slouching low, she rested her chin in her hands and treated him to her most cloying eyelash-bat. “So. Be my boyfriend for an evening?”

“Boyfriend? The hell, Annie, you tryna steal my man?” She could hear Caleb’s boots clomping along behind her before they circled into view. He took a place on Ben’s other side, standing with his hip against one of the posts studding the pier. “Jesus, a guy turns his back for two seconds. Can’t trust anyone these days.”

“Anna’s just confessed her undying love for me and invited me to a party.”

“Party, I fucking love parties. Why don’t ya ever invite _me_ to parties?”

Anna skeptically trailed her eyes over Caleb’s mud-caked boots, oil-stained jeans, and rumpled flannel. Even without his jacket, he seemed immune to the cold. Probably the beard had developed its own circulatory system by this point, which must’ve helped. “Honestly, Caleb, I didn’t think this one would be your scene. It’s sort of … um. How can I put this. You might have to wear a suit. Are you familiar with suits? As, you know, as a concept?”

“Sure I am! Clubs, hearts, diamonds, spades. Easy.” When she stuck her tongue out at him, he only smirked. “Oh, get that stick outta your ass, girl, have a little faith. I clean up real shiny. Woody gonna be there?”

Always, _always_ , it came back to _Abe_. Anna groaned and let her face sink into her hands.

“Oookay, then. Say. Anna.” When she looked up, Caleb was regarding her with no trace of a smile. Just that cool aloofness that always looked so unnerving on him. “There any aspect of your life that’s _not_ a clusterfuck o’ drama right now?”

She wasn’t close enough to shove him. Fortunately, Ben did it for her, the darling, though only in the leg rather than right off the pier as she might’ve. “Hey. Don’t be an asshole unless you feel like a swim.”

“Just sayin’! Not sayin’ it’s your _fault_ or anything, just, you know. Sounds exhaustin’. Lawless adventurin’ is much better, take it from me. Seems to me that draggin’ ol’ Selah back into things is just gonna cluster it up even more.”

“In the short term, maybe. Probably. Yes. But _ol’ Selah_ got me into all this, so he damned well better help get me out. Not that he has anything to worry about if Akinbode won’t help!” With a groan, she slumped back until she was laying flat on the pier. “We thought having Abby there would be enough to keep him in a good mood, at least make him listen, but all it did was make him even more annoyed whenever I butted in. I begged, I pleaded, I made promises ... If Abby can’t wear him down, I don’t … I mean, it’s not as though it’ll be _hard!_ He’s used to hunting down convicts, how hard can _Selah_ be?”

Caleb whistled lowly. A careful, considering whistle. “You tell him that?”

“ _Yes_. It’s no use. He could do it, I know he could, and he _knows_ I’d pay him back, but it’s like—it’s like he just couldn’t be bothered to care. Like I wasn’t interesting enough to waste five minutes on. It’s all just to spite me, I’m sure.”

“Well, there’s your problem right there, ain’t it? Interest. _Motivation_. You gotta motivate him, and I hate to tell ya, darling, but from what I hear, the way you’re goin’ about it is, well. It’s kinda shit.”

Anna propped herself up on her elbows to glare at him. “I appealed to his greed, to his feelings for Abby, to his scraps of humanity—what more do you want me to—”

“No no, see, yer lookin’ at this all wrong. It’s like you’re out fishin’ but you’re using the wrong bait.” All of a sudden, he clapped his hands together. “Fuck me—no, no, it’s like, your man, he’s a hunter, right? A bounty hunter. But here you are shovin’ a rod and reel at him, trying to get him to come fishing _with_ you, only, he ain’t that kind of predator, is he. He doesn’t wanna sit back and wait for a bite; he wants to get his rifle and _hunt_.”

“Ooh, nice analogy,” remarked Ben, and Caleb swept a bow.

“Thanks!”

“Have you two developed some secret language since leaving Setauket, or are you just that drunk?” asked Anna with eyebrows well raised.

Caleb pointed at Ben. “Soldier boy gets me. Tell her, Tallmadge.”

“It’s a tactical matter. Strategy.” As Ben explained, Caleb dropped down at his side and unceremoniously grabbed the jacket Ben was wearing by the lapel. Ben endured without so much as a blink as Caleb began rummaging for the pocket inside. “You and Abby had a battle plan going in, which is good, but it was a fundamentally flawed one. Your tactics aren’t working because you based your strategy on faulty intelligence—namely, a faulty understanding of Akinbode himself.”

“Comes down, see,” muttered Caleb, still rummaging, “to the difference between _hunters_ —” With an _aha!_ , he freed his stashed beer and held it aloft. “—and fishermen.”

Caleb kicked his feet out over the side of the dock and cracked open his beer. “I been on all sortsa fishing boats, you know? Crab boats, cod boats, trawlers, seiners, longliners, trollers, goin’ after lobsters and skipjack and marlin—hell, last fall, I was workin’ on a dogfish crew, pulling in those spiny bastards on gillnets. Trust me, one of those fuckers sticks you, suddenly they ain’t half as cute as they look on the bottle.” Beer sloshed as he wagged the bottle from side to side. “All sortsa boats. Know what they all got in common?

“The _waiting_. Sure, it’s hard work, fishin’, but a lot of it’s patience, too. We sit. We hook our bait and cast our nets, wait till we figure we’ve got a good catch—and it’s not the most exacting method, I can tell ya that. You get all sorts of bycatch, trash, things you don’t want … But it’s a numbers game, so it works out. Unless he’s sport fishin’ or chasin’ his white whale, a fisherman ain’t too picky about each individual fish, ‘cause he’s after quantity more than anything. Hunters, though …” He took a long drink. “Hunters don’t play the numbers. They don’t just sit around waitin’ for whatever to stumble in, either. Hunters _pursue_.”

“Wait. Wait. This I must dispute.” Anna folded herself up into a sitting position. “I’ve _been_ hunting. Richard Woodhull let me come along with Abe and Thomas once when we were kids. The whole _enterprise_ consisted of getting out of bed at an ungodly hour, sitting in a freezing little box up in a tree, and staring at a feeder until poor Bambi wandered in for breakfast.”

“The lady’s got a point. My grandpa used to take us out for deer season. Me and Sam.”

Caleb looked genuinely wounded that Ben would undermine him in any way.

“Jesus Christ, Annie, I ain’t done. Stop shitting on my analogy before it’s even full baked.”

“More of a metaphor, I think,” Anna murmured, then stopped herself before she could think any further about the last time she’d had a debate like that or who it had been with.

“ _Point_ is, hunters? They’re _particular_. Fishermen, we’re lazy sluts, we’ll just lie back and take as much as we can get. A hunter’s holding out for that special someone: the trophy with the prettiest pelt or the most points on its rack or that’s just nice and fat and is gonna make him the most sausages. He might watch half a dozen deer wander in before he sees one he wants. He might track a mountain cat for miles and miles or stalk a den for days goin’ after that _one_ prize. And once he’s on the scent, he ain’t letting go. He’ll follow the blood trail till the poor beastie drops.

“And why? ‘Cause for him, that’s the _fun_. The stalking, the hardship, the whole business of pickin’ out that special prize and taking it down. Takes the fun right out of it if there’s no challenge. Hunters wanna feel like they’ve earned every kill. And _that_ , girlie, is where you’re goin’ wrong with Abby’s friend.”

“You based your incentives on the flawed assumption that Akinbode prefers the path of least resistance,” added Ben. “You came off too desperate, and you rewarded him by letting Abigail be sweet _immediately_ when she should have held herself back, played hard to get. You made it all too easy. Basically—”

“You bored the poor man’s nuts off, Annie. Bored ‘em right off.”

“Why do anything to win over Abby if she’s acting so friendly that he assumes it’s already a done deal? Why hunt Selah, with no immediate payment, if it doesn’t even sound like fun?”

Caleb gripped Ben by the shoulders as he leaned around to grin at Anna. “You gotta give him something to _chase!_ Whether that’s Selah’s ass or Abby’s, you gotta make it look so fucking juicy, Annie, and so fucking coy. Too tasty to pass by.”

The stars were faint above, obscured by light pollution and a dusty, rose-colored smog. Anna watched a cloud move in front of the moon. “You two talk as though it’s all a game.”

She’d meant it as a reproach, but Caleb only laughed. “Course it’s a _game_. Don’t mean it’s any less real.”

Later still, so late that it was starting to become early, Anna lay on the pier with her boots dangling over the water, her back warm against the wood, and her eyes on the sky. The boys’ voices were a lulling murmur from farther down the pier, where they stood close together, silhouetted against the silver on the waves. Caleb’s words kept drifting through her mind.

Perhaps Akinbode wasn’t the only person she’d misunderstood. Perhaps it was time to stop thinking of herself as prey hiding in a den and start thinking of herself as Achilles—like in Hewlett’s conceit. Slighted, but proud. Hiding away for the moment, but dangerous even so. Holding within her a power and a vengeance that simply waited for the right moment to be released. Perhaps she could be a hunter, too, even if she didn’t look the part.

And if it was a game, perhaps it was one she could beat him at.

 

\---

 

“ _Philadelphia?_ When?”

Even on speakerphone, Akinbode’s perturbation rang clear. Over the rim of a much-needed cup of Irish breakfast, Anna looked at Abigail and raised her brows. Abby gave the slightest smile in return.

“Well, I’d rather let Cicero finish out the school year, but it depends what my new boss says. He may not wanna wait. What difference does it make to you?”

The phone lay between them as they sat cross-legged on the hotel bed, where Abby had slept and which Anna was annoyed to discover was significantly more comfortable than Caleb’s couch. At least Ben had been chivalrous enough to take the floor. And at least Abby hadn’t been _too_ annoyed when Anna woke her at three a.m. with a text instructing her to _CANCEL BRUNCH W/ A.!!! NEW STRATEGY. NO KISSING._

“Philadelphia’s a hell of a long ways away, that’s what. What’s wrong with staying in Setauket?”

“You mean, Setauket where I don’t have a job anymore ‘cause my boss lost her business? _That_ Setauket?” From the sound of it, Abby didn’t even have to fake that bitter tone. “How am I supposed to stay in Setauket?”

A moment of crackling silence. “... At least let me see you again before you go. You can come up to Boston anytime, we can—”

“Philly to Boston is like _six hours_ at _least._ Sure, I’ll just hop on a train!”

“Well, lemme know whenever you’re in New York, at least, and I can—”

“Akinbode, I—Look.” Abby leaned down and sighed loud enough to be heard. “Look, it was real nice seeing you and all, but I gotta be honest. I don’t think I’ll be doing much visiting to Setauket. The only person I’ve got there is Anna. And if she loses her apartment?” A pause invited him to fill in the blanks on his own. “I’m already trying to get her to move down with me. It might be nice to have a roommate and all.”

The silence on the other end of the line was eloquent in its horror.

Now Abby raised her eyebrows. “Akinbode? You still here?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m still here. A _roommate_. You’re too old for that shit.”

“Hey! What’s wrong with having a roommate? She could watch Cicero, keep me company, split the rent … I’d never have to be _alone_ …” The girls grinned at one another. “Besides. Friends have to look out for one another. What if the bank comes after her apartment next? Where else is she gonna go? That’s a serious consideration now, you know. No thanks to you.”

Her head was pounding, her stomach was roiling, and the Irish breakfast had come out of a teabag, but Anna was feeling better with every moment nonetheless. She folded a hand over her mouth to help keep silent as, after a long pause, Akinbode spoke.

“... Look. I really, you know. It was real nice seeing you again, too, Abby. Don’t get ahead of yourself about all this.”

Abigail leaned back onto the bed. “I don’t have much reason to hold back. Hey, I gotta go here in a minute, so—”

“Wait—” A crackling sigh. “Look. Just hold off on the roommate shit, okay? Tell Anna to send me whatever info she’s got on her old man.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sayin’ I’ll do it. We’ve got protocol, you know, we don’t go running around taking contracts on prospect just on a whim. But—” Anna’s hands were trembling on the cup; she swiftly set it down; “—I’ll pass it on up, all right. See if the boss thinks it’s worth the trouble. I’ll even put in a good word.”

“Oh, _hon_. She’ll be so happy, you have no idea.”

“I don’t give a damn how happy she is. Just promise you’ll come along if I get her a meeting with the boss, hm?”

“I might. Depends how busy I am, and whether you make it worth our time.” Abby’s smile was so sweet and her voice so airy, promising nothing. “I’ve really gotta run, Akinbode. Till next time, okay?”

After Abigail hung up, she pressed the phone to her chest and rolled to face Anna. “Well? How’d I do?”

The only answer Anna could manage was to tackle her in a hug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If it was a game, perhaps it was one she could beat him at” — paraphrased from Anna’s dialogue in S2E9.
> 
> See, this chapter wasn’t quite so angsty, was it? Relatively angstless, if tragically deficient in Hew. I gotta tell y'all, I'm pretty excited for certain upcoming events. I still can't decide whether Ben or Caleb would be more fun as Anna's party date, though. They're both so promising. Any votes?


	7. Thunder & Lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for fancy clothing, uncomfortable situations, and oh so very much science: the night at the museum begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Thunder and lightning" refers to a particular type of cream tea ("tea" as in the meal). Am I really, really reaching with this title theme by now? You bet I am!
> 
> SUPER COOL THING: The wonderful conchord was kind enough to make a gifset based on this fic! It's great, and Heather Lind's face is the most perfect. Check it out! http://hey-there-bret.tumblr.com/post/129623132907/anna-and-hewlett-meet-in-her-tea-shop-despite  
> (Bonus to more of Burn's face, because hey, who doesn't love that: http://hey-there-bret.tumblr.com/post/129938831467/burn-gorman-as-trask-in-revenge)

Edmund arrayed the instruments around the surface of his desk in the same manner in which he did all things: with care. And with, he wasn’t too modest to add, rather a pleasing attention to geometry and proportion. The horizontal center of his notepad was aligned precisely with that of the desk, the upper and lower edges of each running parallel and the corners square. His fountain pen, pencil (freshly sharpened), and eraser stood shoulder to shoulder according to height, his inkwell and pipette filled out some of that negative space off in the northeast quadrant, and his mug of fresh, steaming coffee performed much the same office on the other side, ideally positioned to be within easy reach without being in the way. He took a considering sip and returned the cup to its place before taking up his pen, setting nib to paper, and beginning with his usual address:

_Dear Mum._

Rain hissed on the rooftop, and night had erased the line between sea and sky, rendering the view from his window one great spill of black punctuated only by the fireflies of a million streetlights and windows. A stormy night; a cozy night, penned in by thunder and rain. The sort of night well served by a hot drink, a comfortable seat with a view of the sky, and a task to keep both hands and mind well occupied. Longhand always suited him better when drafting letters, even ones he ultimately sent by e-mail. There was something about the glide of pen across paper that lent his thoughts a fluidity that the stiff, stilted tapping of keys couldn’t capture. Often, his mind didn’t even have time to comprehend what he was writing until his hand had already written it. Words took shape from ink as though of their own accord as he continued:

_As ever, my apologies for the long silence. (Have you tired of hearing that yet? I imagine you’re rolling your eyes quite eloquently at the moment. Stop that at once.) I could reasonably claim that I have been very busy at the firm of late, and such a claim would not be untrue … But perhaps it would be a fuller truth to say that I simply have not had anything very interesting to write._

His mind caught up with his hand, and Edmund paused.

Nothing _very interesting?_ Well, didn’t that sound awfully maudlin. With a shake of his head and a deprecating chuckle, he moved to strike the line. After all, he did many interesting things with his time.

Such as read the latest articles on finance and contract law.

And sketch the view of the city from his window, pencil carefully deepening the shadows between the buildings and the nearby park.

And take pains, wherever he walked, that he never wandered too near a certain little shop about which he tried very hard not to think.

Many interesting things.

Edmund’s pen still hovered above the line. After a moment, he lowered it. The words unstruck. A wavering moment in which he tried to think of what else to write; then, abruptly, he rested his elbows on the desk and slumped down with a sigh.

If Mother could see him now! She’d insist he sit up straight, for one, and then demand to know what on earth he had to sigh about, surrounded as he was by so many luxuries and the comfort of his beautiful flat. Windows stretched floor to ceiling along one wall, granting him a view of Setauket and the sea. Another wall consisted entirely of bookshelves. He had a desk where he could write, a drafting table where he could sketch, a place by the window where his telescope awaited him on clear nights … Luxurious, yes, but why shouldn’t it be? After all, he spent a great deal of time here. Not as much time as he spent at the office; but otherwise … There were occasional visits with Richard, yes, less frequent of late, but otherwise, the office and the flat were where he spent almost the entirety of his time.

Good lord—put it that way, and didn’t he sound _boring_.

Lightning shuttered and thunder rolled, and as the room flickered briefly bright, Edmund abandoned his discarded pen and his cooling coffee and the desk that no longer seemed half so soothing and orderly. Nor did his mind. Standing before the window, he watched the rain carve forking paths down the glass. His reflection watched as well. In the dark glass, his complexion had all the color of chalk. The hollows of his cheeks were deepened to pits, the bags beneath his eyes were bruises, and his mouth, always a bit too broad, cut his face like a gash. He looked ghastly. Suspicious. Weary. _Old_.

He knew that people tended to reckon his age at five or ten years older than he actually was. He knew he’d never been conventionally attractive, or even conventionally approachable—and what of it? He didn’t _need_ to be approachable. He was a leader, a figure of authority and discipline and order. The only feelings he _needed_ to inspire in his colleagues were trust, competence, and the knowledge that he was always fair but seldom lenient. If his severe appearance did anything to reinforce that in their minds—well, that could only be to the good. But the fact remained that he was _not_ old. Not really. Nor was he as cold and stern as his colleagues probably imagined him to be. Not outside the workplace, at least.

And above all, he was not _boring._ So how was it that he could have fallen into the sad, stereotypical, quotidian trap of work, home, work, home, work, home, work, without even noticing? How could he have lived in this city so long already yet still feel so out of place?

Several pulses of lightning cracked at once, and the clouds exploded with light. He was still marveling at the sheer, primitive magnificence of it all, the marvelous juxtaposition of beauty and terror one so often found paired in the natural world, when a long, low wave of thunder rolled along in its wake about six seconds later. At the same time, a brilliant bolt jumped between two clouds. In the heartbeat it was visible, the lightning branched spiderlike across the sky and lit the horizon pale pink, flashing sparks on the crests of the waves in the bay and silhouetting, just for a moment, the huge dome atop some building near the water.

It took only four seconds for the accompanying thunder to shake the sky and shiver through Edmund’s bones. Two seconds after that, he recognized the dome as belonging to the museum he’d so often walked by.

A half-second more, and he remembered the ticket Mary had pressed into his hands.

 

\---

 

“Promise me,” Abigail warned. Her voice was a low threat, her eyes narrowed to show precisely how serious she was. That might’ve worked better without the cat’s-eye makeup and glitter eye shadow, but Anna wasn’t about to tell her that.

“Abby, sometimes I feel as though you don’t trust me. Why don’t you trust—ow!”

Abigail’s fingernails were beautifully painted and, as it turned out, very painful when jabbed into the ribs.

“I know you! And I remember the last time we came to one of these. That was when things were _good_ , and you still spent the whole night muttering about how the café was serving the tea wrong.”

“What am I supposed to do—turn a blind eye to injustice? They’re serving _my_ tea tonight. It’s like I’ve handed them a precious child, and if I look away for even a moment, they’ll drop it on its head.”

“ _Anna_ …”

Abby looked so miserable there beneath the gentle golden light of the museum windows, her frown so at odds with the careful application of her makeup and the pristine beauty of her immaculate white dress, that Anna could only sigh. “Fine. I _promise_ I’ll attempt to have fun.”

“Do better than attempt, girlie. I don’t wanna be stuck entertaining your friends while you mope in the corner.”

Anna shifted uncomfortably on her feet. The heels of her shoes were thick, but higher than she was used to, and already her calves were starting to ache a bit when she stood still too long. She and Abigail had been waiting in a shadowed corner at the top of the museum’s steps for nearly ten minutes. One still, quiet little corner just for them as, all around, the museum buzzed with activity. Valets waited all along the semicircular drive to open the doors of a parade of taxis, Ubers, and private cars that seemed to have no end. Guests were flocking toward the nearby doors; a hum of speech filled the air; men and women in clothes that cost as much as Anna’s rent and jewelry that could buy a house condescended to smile at the ushers as they handed over their tickets, chatting amongst themselves about whatever the hell rich people chatted about.

All was glitter and ambiance and light, promising nothing but levity. Yet Anna couldn’t shake this odd thread of unease. As though some part of her sensed that something terrible was going to happen tonight—or something beautiful—or both.

But what could be more terrible than everything that had already happened to her? And why would the idea of beauty fill her with such dread? Anna remembered her lipstick just in time to stop herself from biting her lip. Instead, she tugged at the hem of her dress. It was a bit shorter than she’d remembered, to be honest, and the square neckline _much_ deeper—or maybe it’d just been so long since she’d had occasion to wear anything other than jeans and sweaters that she wasn’t used to showing skin at all. Her knees and calves had goosebumps from the damp breeze off the harbor, and with a thousand bobby pins trapping her hair in the neatest bun she’d ever managed to construct in her life, there was nothing to stop the wind from shivering along her neck, her collar bones … and the tops of her breasts. At least the sleeves were long and the fabric heavy enough to lend some warmth. Moreover, the fabric was a deep red. So one thing she should _not_ have to dread, at least, was embarrassing herself by spilling wine all over it. Maybe Abigail should’ve considered that before she went with white.

The only thing she could find to pin her unease on was the company. Anna leaned back into the shadows along the wall and watched the men in their fancy suits and the women in their silks and jewels. A certain class of people belonged here tonight. A certain class with a certain range of interests and a certain interest in cultivating a reputation as refined, intelligent patrons of the arts and sciences. And Anna knew that she did not belong among them.

These people were not Anna’s comrades; they were not her friends or her peers. They were the sort of people she’d railed against in her activist days and still did not trust to have anyone’s best interests at heart but their own. She might fool them for tonight, might trick them into thinking she was one of them simply by virtue of her presence here, but if they knew the truth, they would all look so far down their noses at her that she’d wind up feeling about two inches tall.

“Speaking of your friends,” Abby continued. “The party’s gonna be over before those boys of yours get here. Don’t tell me I put on makeup and got a sitter just to miss the whole thing.”

“It never _starts_ this early. This is just schmoozing time. Then comes announcements time, then free-wandering time, then Mrs. Rios gets to do her thing with the new exhibit. The more of that we can _miss_ , the better, if you ask—”

“Anna!”

Her head jerked up, and she turned toward the courtyard. At once, with a wide smile, she stepped into the light and waved. From the sidewalk at the bottom of the stairs, Ben waved in return. The first thing Anna did as he started up the steps, taking them two at a time, was think to herself how handsome he looked tonight. Hair neatly brushed back, the faintest trace of stubble on his cheeks, fawn-colored slacks and a blue jacket, elegantly cut, that doubtless brought out his eyes … Well, if she had to have a fake boyfriend, at least she got one she could show off a bit. The second thing she did as she took a quick look around was wonder where the hell he’d managed to lose Caleb. He’d sworn he wanted to come, too, but he was nowhere to be seen.

The third thing she did was startle as she took a closer look at the shorter man jogging up a few steps behind Ben. Then she clapped both hands over her mouth to hold back what was either a scream of horror or a laughing fit so intense it would probably kill her.

“Hey there, gorgeous,” said Ben casually as he reached the stop of the stairs. Too casually. As though he didn’t notice her whole body shaking with so much horror-mirth that she couldn’t even respond. Then Caleb was bounding up the last few steps and stopping in front of her with a smug, self-satisfied stance.

Carefully, she lowered her hands. Clamped them together in front of herself and cleared her throat. “Caleb,” she began in a low, serious tone, and tried desperately not to choke on the laughter that threatened in her throat: “What happened to your _beard?_ ”

“Ya like it, huh?” With a grin and a swagger, Caleb sauntered up close, rubbing his hands up and down his cheeks. His completely _smooth, clean-shaven, baby-faced_ cheeks. “ _Told_ ya I clean up nice!”

A glance at Ben showed him standing next to Abby, who looked lost, and staring stoically off into the distance—but he couldn’t hide the twitching of his lips. That cinched it; Anna returned her hands to her mouth, stumbled to brace herself against the nearby wall, and doubled over with laughter.

“Oh, that’s nice. That’s fucking reassuring. This isn’t hurting my feelings at all, Annie.” Anna struggled to catch her breath.

“I’m—sorry, I’m sorry, I’m just—” She took a gasping breath and covered her entire face with her hands. Her forehead pressed against the rough granite. “I’m just t-trying to remember the last time I saw this much of your _face!_ It … It might have been _middle school_.” A few breaths more, and Anna felt collected enough to turn around. Another look at Caleb almost killed her again. Light from the windows was falling across his face, and oh lord, he had _tan lines_. His cheeks had _tan lines_. If she hadn’t been wearing mascara, Anna would’ve cried. “Just—just … _Why?_ ”

Ben wrapped an arm around her shoulders from behind. “I found him with clippers in one hand and whiskey in the other, saying something about not wanting to ‘ _tickle the ladies_.’” With his free hand, he made air quotes in her peripheral vision. “What ‘ladies’ those might be, I didn’t dare ask.”

“All them sexy science ladies, of course! Classy. Sophisticated. _Well-read_. They don’t want some hairy mess scrapin’ at their lips, or at other places.” He swanned around Ben’s other side, smoothing back his hair as he went. Despite the _effort_ put into his face, his hair didn’t look any neater than usual. His blazer hung open, as did the top few buttons on his shirt—and a tie had clearly been too much to hope for. Anna supposed she ought to be grateful he’d worn slacks instead of jeans.

Caleb hooked one arm around Ben’s waist and used the other to capture Abigail. She looked equal parts amused and terrified as he reeled her in against his side. “Speakin’ of sexy, check you ladies out! Damn it, Benny boy, we gotta be on our guard tonight. Every man in the damn place is gonna be tryna steal our girls, along with half the women, too.”

Abby’s face was priceless. Anna hid a smile against Ben’s side. “Abby, you remember Caleb. Caleb, Abby.”

“I could hardly forget,” Abby carefully affirmed, which made Caleb grin. He unwrapped his arms from Ben and Abby’s waists and offered his arms to each of them instead, the perfect gentleman.

Of course, as soon as they took hold, he charged toward the entrance, dragging the whole lot of them with him. “Well, come on, let’s shake a fucking leg! We gotta show these stiffs how to party!” Anna stumbled along at Ben’s side, her eyes on the great, golden glow of the doors. The dread in her stomach coiled as she wondered what lay inside.

Her hand tightened on Ben’s arm. He squeezed her shoulder in return, and despite herself, Anna felt just a little better in that moment—even as Caleb called, “Hey Annie! You think fancy science people do open bars?”

 

\---

 

“Twelve dollars a glass? For _this?_ ” Reaching across the counter to the display bottle, Edmund pivoted it so that the waiter could see the label. The spotty young man, whose bow tie was crooked and who looked desperately uncomfortable in his white tux, glanced at the bottle without comprehension. “Forgive me, I don’t mean to be rude, but are you quite serious?”

The young man glanced left and right to his fellow servers, but there was no rescue to be found. Each had their own queue of customers to deal with. They stood at one end of a great spread of tables filled with many and varied refreshments: plates of hors d’oeuvres and desserts, fruit, crackers, biscuits, that sort of thing, all freely available for anyone to take as much as they liked—but beverages, _ah_ , apparently _beverages_ was where the museum intended to make a bit of profit this evening. And after waiting in the longest queue known to man to attain one, only to be confronted with this, this oenological outrage … It would be downright _unethical_ to let this crime go unchallenged.

“All the wines are twelve, sir,” the young waiter explained, still glancing side to side. “We, uh, we’ve got … There’s the cabernet, um, or pinot grigio, or champagne. I mean, there’s lots of different kinds. But they’re all twelve.”

Edmund glanced at the row of other bottles lined up on display. The sinking feeling deepened. “...I could find any one of these in a _box_.”

A helpless stare was his only reply.

Clearly, this young man did not understand. Edmund took a deep breath and tried not to lose his patience, knowing the situation was not really so dire. But it wasn’t that he was a miser, for he wasn’t; it wasn’t even about the wine, really, although an appreciation for good wine must surely be a standard by which _any_ civilized society should be judged. In truth, however, none of that would have bothered him half so much if it hadn’t already been interfering with his plan.

For Edmund had not come without a plan, of course. He was a leader, after all, a commander, and every good commander must likewise be a strategist. Thus, he had approached the evening in the same manner in which he did all things:

With care, of course.

First, research. An integral part of the scientific method, and a commander must know the lay of the land. With the sky alight and the thunder raging, he’d dug deep into the museum’s website. History, exhibits, collections … All very interesting, but the most interesting discovery was this: the different organizations open to museum members.

For an exorbitant annual fee, those patrons interested in physics could join the Newtonian Society; or perhaps they preferred medical science and might wish to join the ranks of the Hunterians. There was the Friends of Paleontology, whose interests were obvious, and the Taxidermy Club, which sounded a bit ghoulish, to be honest—and the Copernicans—

No further research required. The Copernican Society was where Edmund belonged.

Next: methodology.

Of course, all one truly needed to join any of these societies was a willingness to part with quite a bit of money, but before he committed to that, it seemed logical that he should attempt to meet some current members. First impressions would, of course, be critical. Ergo, Step One: wardrobe.

An admirer of the classics in all things, Edmund’s many suits were almost all a uniform black. But the _accessories_ , ah. God was in the details. Tragically, his favorite tie had, alas, never entirely recovered from the Coffee Incident at Whitehall, but his _new_ favorite tie provided just the right pop of color and looked dashing paired with a matching pocket square and his best waistcoat. A half hour spent combing his hair this way and that—which ended with him parting it over his left eye and combing it to the right, as he always did—was followed by a few minutes of sitting in front of the mirror and alternately putting his glasses on and taking them off again. In the end, as always, he left them off.

The finishing touch: his favorite cufflinks. He’d fastened the little silver Starfleet insignia through his cuffs, then looked to the mirror and, with a smile, brushed a possibly imaginary speck of lint off his lapel. _Well;_ not so old and ghastly after all, _was_ he?

Step One had panned out nicely thus far. Arriving at the museum, he’d been relieved to see that he was neither underdressed nor egregiously overdressed. It had been a long time since he’d attended a function this formal, and the sight of everyone so polished and pristine put a smile on his face. But here the difficulties began. For in order to meet a member of the Copernican Society, he would have to _mingle_. And mingling, quite frankly, was awful.

Oh, give him Shakespeare to recite, give him an interesting book or a complex legal matter to analyze, give him a philosophical treatise to argue for or against, and he could talk the whole night away, even with a stranger. But the initial overtures of conversation—the introductions, the pleasantries, the _small talk_ … It was all so troublesome. So stiff. Thus, mingling was _not_ Step Two. Mingling was Step Three. First, he must observe that infallible law of nature that had been among the first things he’d learned at university:

Facility of conversation with strangers is directly proportional to the quantity of alcohol poured down one’s throat.

Hence, Step Two, and the reason he had waited in the longest queue on earth to get to the bar. But here, his plan had hit its first sticking point.

The young waiter glanced at the different wines on display and gave an apologetic shrug. “Um. We also have beers for ten dollars, if you want, sir,” he offered. “Or coffee. Or, uh … We have a lot of, like, artisanal teas—”

Shaking his head, Edmund pinched the bridge of his nose. “No no, just—fine. The cab, though I _maintain_ these prices are criminal. In my expert opinion, it’s positively extortion.”

“Ha! I’m with ya there, guy!”

It took Edmund a moment to realize that the loud voice to his left was, in fact, addressing _him_.

He glanced to the side and blinked. Leaning heavily against the counter and bouncing one foot as he apparently waited for his own drink was a stocky, round-faced young man with a lopsided grin on his face and his shirt unbuttoned down to his clavicles.

Before Edmund could think of a response, the speaker grabbed one of the little laminate menus on display and waved it in front of his face. “ _Ten dollars_ for a beer! Can you believe it? Sweet Jesus, it’s like the line’s so damn long, all they gotta do is trick ya into standing in it and then they got ya hooked, you know, you’re in the net. By the time you get up front, it’s too late. You’re too committed. Hey!”

Suddenly, he was pointing the menu at Edmund himself. Specifically, at Edmund’s wrist. “Nice cuff-thingies!”

“Oh—!” Startled, Edmund glanced down at his arm, which he’d rested on the countertop. The Starfleet insignia were just peeking out from the sleeve of his jacket. “Oh, that is, um. Thank you!” Though dazzled by the sudden onslaught of human interaction, he nonetheless felt himself smiling in return. “I so rarely find an opportunity to wear them.”

“I hear ya there, too. Haven’t got this gussied up since my last funeral.”

Edmund’s smile faltered. “O-oh.”

The younger man barked a laugh and thumped the menu back down on the counter. He seemed to lack the ability to stand still. “Ain’t never been to a funeral half this _dead_ , though. Lookit all these stiffs! Think it’ll pick up once they get some booze in ‘em?”

Edmund glanced at the rest of the atrium. There was music playing softly on the intercom—Handel, if he wasn’t mistaken—and a hum of chatter layered over that, hundreds of people milling about, talking, laughing, shaking hands … It all seemed quite lively enough to him. This was a soiree, after all, not some Soho discotheque. “Ah. Well, I suppose only time will tell.”

“I’m thinkin’ we need a nice little explosion to liven things up. Just a small one. No harm done. Or, like—ooh! Say someone finds a _body_ , and then we all hafta use our wicked science skills to solve the crime?” Much waving of hands accompanied the young man’s very loud, very animated delivery. Edmund shifted on his feet; he could _feel_ the surrounding guests’ stares. Undaunted, the other man continued, “And one of us is the killer an’ all, and we gotta figure out who it is. Maybe it’s me. _Maybe you_.”

Brown eyebrows rose dramatically. Edmund could only gape.

Where in heaven’s name was his waiter? A glance to the side showed the young man uncorking a new bottle of the cabernet. Under ordinary circumstances, Edmund might have devised a polite excuse and left, but he could hardly leave without accomplishing Step Two. Nor, he reminded himself, should he forget to consider Step Three. After all—who could say who, precisely, this young man _was?_ Certainly his attire and manner were not … particularly prepossessing, but that didn’t entirely rule anything out. Why—for all Edmund knew, this could be the president of the Copernican Society himself.

… Stranger things had happened, surely.

Just to be safe, Edmund maintained his polite smile. “That _would_ make for, ah, quite a night to remember, I suppose. Though I believe I should require _quite_ a bit more to drink before I could endure it.”

“Well, you look like you can afford it, at least. This round’s gonna bleed me dry.” The young man straightened as his waiter placed a small tray of drinks in front of him. Two glasses of beer, one stem of white wine, and a delicate, flower-shaped cup trailing a curl of steam that had a scent too delicate and too floral to be coffee.

Tea, Edmund realized, and felt a small, unexpected pang.

The young man hoisted the tray up on one hand, making the wine glass wobble precariously. As he did, he continued with utter nonchalance, “Shit, I mean, tickets were pricey enough, was it too much to hope for an open bar? Just plain discourteous, isn’t it, treatin’ someone like this on a night out. This place coulda at least bought me a goddamn drink before it fucked me up the ass.”

Edmund’s mouth dropped open. A moment later, it clicked shut. What on _earth_ was he supposed to say to _that?_

With no break in his easy manner, the other man nodded at the counter. “Yer wine’s ready, fella. See ya around!” And, starting up a merry whistle, he pushed off through the crowd.

Leaving Edmund too scandalized to do anything but shake his head, take his wine from the counter, and mumble a numb thank-you to the server. _Really_ —the way some people these days _talked_.

Still shaking his head, he began navigating his way through the crowd back to the open waters of the atrium. Well, the wine may thus far have proven itself lackluster and the company … interesting, but when it came to the museum itself, Edmund could find no fault. Not so prestigious as its counterpart in London, of course, nor so well known as the ones in Boston and New York, but from the moment he’d stepped through the doors, Edmund had felt himself falling in love.

The place was a dream. A beautiful, elegantly geometric, delightfully rational dream. The grand entryway and atrium were filled not only with people and lights and food, but with wonders that surely only hinted at the marvels to be found in the rest of the building. The first had met him just inside the doors, where he’d caught sight of it as he handed his ticket to the doorman: the complete and articulated skeleton of _Aepyornis maximus_ in a glass case stood in the center of the entryway, its arrow-shaped head looking down at Edmund from twice his height. Scattered throughout the vast, high-ceilinged atrium stood more specimens on stands, as well as larger cases around the walls—models of iconic spacecraft and aircraft, their parts diagrammed and catalogued; a dire wolf skeleton captured as though in midstride; a massive geode of quartz cut into cross section, exposing a crystal-filled cavity so huge that Edmund could have curled up within it. A blaze of color on the eastern wall highlighted a thirty-foot-tall mural of a nautilus’s shell, rendered with brilliant realism and overlayed with the bright lines of a Fibonacci grid.

Crowning it all, in the very center of the room, a massive sculptural interpretation of Watson and Crick’s famed double helix spiraled its way toward the sky. And all of it, in Edmund’s estimation, served as an illustration of the same guiding principle: that here, within these walls, the apparent chaos of nature was given order, the most esoteric of equations were given beauty, and all the frightful mysteries of the universe that for so long had driven men to live in fear of the most wondrous and fascinating phenomena—comets; eclipses; thunder and the lightning it followed—were tamed, dissected, laid bare. Yet rendered no less marvelous for having been explained.

Yes; between the Neoclassical facade and the reverence evident in every detail, it was difficult not to think of the place as a temple of sorts. A temple of Reason, and all these dapper folk milling about were a congregation he wouldn’t mind becoming part of.

Edmund had barely made it away from the crowd around the refreshments when the distinctive hollow thump of a finger tapping against a microphone brought his head up. All eyes turned toward the double helix in the center of the room.

“Yes, yes, hello? Can everyone hear? Ok, let us start!”

Through the gaps between members of the crowd, Edmund could make out two figures standing before the sculpture. One, a short man who nonetheless possessed an authoritative air; the other, a woman whose hair and dress were both the same steely gray. He could see her bouncing slightly on her feet as she passed the microphone to the man.

“Ladies and gentlemen: good evening. Let me begin by thanking you all very much for joining us tonight…”

As the curator ran through the standard opening remarks, Edmund took up a place near the wall, where he could observe the proceedings without being quite so in the thick of things. He swirled his cabernet beneath his nose and took a considering sip. Grimaced. Forced another mouthful down.

“Tonight, we have the privilege of introducing to Setauket our newest exhibition. In that, I defer to our resident expert and the exhibit’s creator, our own Mercedes Rios; Mercedes—”

A laugh, high and sudden and feminine, snapped Edmund’s attention to the right. It was a short sound and relatively quiet, and few others seemed to notice; the woman in gray had taken back the mic and was filling the room with a rapid tumult of excited, accented speech. He squinted in the direction of the disturbance.

Not far away, obscured and fractured by the bodies between them but still visible in glimpses and fractures, four figures stood close together.

“—been in development for, oh, for _years_ , so happy to finally be able to show you all—”

Two of the four people were moving. Pushing one another, almost. In the middle of the _speech_. Honestly, people these days. Leaning forward to gain a better view, Edmund was somehow not surprised to discover that one of the offenders was the _interesting_ young man from the bar.

“—will personally introduce you all to the exhibit in about an hour, but until then—”

Though he was too far away to hear, Edmund could see the stocky man’s lips moving as he dodged away from one of his companions: a woman in red with her back to Edmund. Her arm was outstretched toward her friend’s face, her free hand grabbing at his jacket as she attempted to clamp her hand over his mouth.

“—please explore the rest of the museum—we have set up many special shows and programs for you tonight, demonstrations and experiments and such like—”

The stocky man ducked behind the other male in the group: a tall blond too busy trying to keep two drinks from spilling to retaliate. The woman in red kept trying to grab him, the blond caught in the middle, as a young black woman watched with her hands over her mouth and her shoulders shaking.

“—and so! Everyone, please join me by the astronomy theater at 9 o’clock for the big reveal, yes? But for now, no more speaking. Wander, mingle, have fun—” Just as the woman in gray was wrapping up, the woman in red finally managed to capture her friend. She pressed her hand over his mouth in a definite _shushing_ fashion and didn’t release him until he’d nodded several times. “—enjoy! And I will see you again at 9!”

A wave of polite applause rose up from the crowd, but Edmund hardly noticed. He was too captured, all of a sudden, by the woman’s hair. Strands were falling out of her chignon and drifting dark across the nape of her neck, and the sight reminded him, all of a sudden, of someone who could not be here; someone who it would be _absurd_ to imagine was here. The very height of unlikelihood and coincidence. Yet his fingers tightened on his glass.

The speaker’s spell was broken. The doors to the rest of the museum were opening; the crowd began to disperse. A wave of people cut off Edmund’s line of sight. He stepped forward at once, wavered. Soldiered on—not with any particular intent, of course, certainly not to _spy_ , but simply because the crowd was moving and he ought to move with it, shouldn’t he. And if it just so happened that he paused—for only a moment—when the press of bodies once again thinned enough to grant him a glimpse of a dress the color of wine...

There. Impossible to miss amidst so many others dressed in black or blue or white. Fine, dark hair fell along her nape and dusted the sweep of her shoulders. Her hand lifted to rest above her blond companion’s heart, and as Edmund wandered a few steps more, her head tilted against his chest, and his arm draped over her shoulders.

In one hand, the man held a beer; in the other, that delicate little cup of tea. She took the cup from him and cradled it in front of herself. As the other two began to drift with the crowd, the blonde and his lady turned to face them, their movements so natural and synchronized that no onlooker could possibly mistake their familiarity with one another. At last, Edmund could see their faces fully. The man’s: ridiculously handsome, of course, and ridiculously young. And the woman’s…

Edmund thought of planets and comets and how beautiful it was, and how terrifying, that out of all the vastness of space, their orbits inevitably brought them so perilously close. Not until someone jostled him on their way past did he realize he’d ceased moving entirely. The crowd was thinning out, and almost nothing lay between them now but air.

Her face was downturned, her lashes a brush of black against her cheeks as she gently blew on her tea. Steam drifted over her lips and curled the ends of the hairs drifting along her neck. Then her head lifted, and her gaze drifted absently to the side. To the empty space in the crowd. To him.

Anna Strong’s teacup slipped from her fingers and plummeted to the floor as, with a shock like lightning leaping between two clouds, her eyes met his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a couple little quotes from the show: "Caleb, what happened to your beard?" (and the "tickling the ladies" response) hail from season 2, and there's a nod to a throwaway line in season 1 about him screwing a "well-read" woman in New Haven. Alas, show-Anna managed to reply to that one with considerably more sass.


	8. Thunder & Lightning II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this fic recently broke 1000 hits. I really just want to take a moment to say how much I appreciate all of the support and enthusiasm this story's received. I truly cannot overstate how much it means to me. To everyone reading: Thank you for putting up with my overly verbose prose! I plan to continue throwing words at you, so stick around! ;) To everyone who's left kudos or comments: I couldn't do it without you. Every time I get discouraged or blocked or start panicking, the knowledge that there are people out there waiting for the next chapter is the kick in the ass I need to keep writing. Y'all rock, every one of ya.
> 
> Anyway, here's another 7,000 words of dorks being dorks. _Enjoy._

In the moment before she lifted her eyes, there was steam drifting over her lips and the astringent taste of tannin on her tongue, and Anna was lost in a memory of Selah.

There had always been something artful about him, Selah. Something composed and statuesque. She remembered him sitting by the window on some cool, clouded day with his face turned away from her and the cup of matcha in his hands filling their apartment with a clean, cut-grass scent redolent of the way the air tasted after a rain. So fresh, so bitter, so sharp, conjuring thoughts of bare feet sinking into soil and flowers with their pollen knocked from their heads … And cutting through it all was that tingling tannin taste, dry as the hum of ozone before a storm.

So long since she’d seen his face, but the way the angles of his face looked limned in light as he watched a rain that drained the color from the sky and left it pooled in blue shadows along the walls remained clear in her memory. The image as carefully composed as any painting, down to the palette and lighting. But she must’ve been watching him from the doorway, perhaps, or from somewhere across the room, because the image of him seemed unaware and undisturbed and held no traces of her own presence.

That was the problem with art, she supposed. Gaze at a painting, and the subject within the frame is lovely to see ... but impossible for the viewer to truly touch.

Canvas and paint and marble, yes. Those could be touched. But a painting was more than canvas and a still life was more than paint and the statue of a man was more than the marble shaping him, just as surely as a person was more than meat and blood and bone; and just as surely as her lips had brushed over Selah’s, just as surely as her fingers had trailed over every inch of his skin and her eyes had memorized the angles of him in every light, in no way did that mean that she’d _known_ him, truly, that she’d ever touched him on a level deeper than the surface. Had she ever managed, by accident or intent, to reach the heart of him? Would she even have recognized that heart if she had?

Matcha rippled in her teacup. Froth still lingered on the surface, and the overbright lights of the museum hit the tea in glints of peridot green. It looked almost like paint, the color was so vivid and thick, impossible to see through to the bottom. Anna sucked the tannin from her lips and let herself recall, just for one moment more, the taste of Selah’s mouth.

Then she looked up, and forgot Selah at once.

“ _Woah_ —Anna, you okay?”

Anna started at the touch of a hand on her arm. At once, she turned her face away; looked to the side, looked down, looked _anywhere_ other than at whom she’d just seen. Her elbow bumped against Ben’s chest as she stepped back. Only when her gaze hit the floor did she realize she was no longer holding her tea.

“Shit,” she heard herself say. Her voice seemed to be coming from a great distance away. Porcelain clinked as she dragged her foot out of the puddle before her, where green tea was seeping away from the wreckage of her cup in precise, perpendicular canals along the grout lines of the floor. “Oh no, I, I didn’t … _Shit_.”

The matcha gave the white tile beneath a marbled, chartreuse cast. Like the eerie color the sky sometimes turned in advance of a bad storm. Green skies preceded tornados, she recalled out of nowhere—or some other kind of storm? Terrible weather, was all she knew, they preceded terrible weather, and as a child she had learned to pay attention to the sky and to sit by the window, watching with dread, whenever it turned that strange, sickly green.

Strange how dread, in moments like that, could dilate the passage of time, making every moment last for an eternity until the storm finally hit. Strange how that same dilation could happen now, in this overly civilized place where nothing should have posed a threat. All around her, people were talking, evening gowns glittering as they moved, but Anna felt as though she were seeing it all through a glass.

The tea. A mess, a complete mess, and in front of all these rich folks—how _embarrassing_. Have to do something about the tea. Anna peeled away from Ben and, unsteady in her high heels, lowered herself to the floor.

“It’s okay, I’m, I’m fine. Just—just slipped, I guess. No worries.” All eyes were on her. She could _feel_ them, Ben’s and Abby’s and Caleb’s, could perfectly picture their matched bemusement even with her face lowered decisively toward the floor. She refused to look at anything but the mess as she gathered up pieces of the cup. “You guys go on ahead—I’ll only be a second, okay?”

Her fingers kept fumbling the china. She wondered whether he was still looking at her—whether he could see them shake.

Ben’s knee lowered into her field of vision as he knelt at her side. “Anna, stop.”

She managed to pick up one piece, nearly dropped another. “It’s okay, really, I’ve—I’ve got it—”

“ _Stop_. You’re going to cut yourself.” Gently, his hands covered her own. Her grip remained tense and his hands remained over hers until, at last, her shoulders slumped. She let the china fall into his palm. “Hey. It’s not a big deal, Anna. I promise.”

Her face turned toward his in alarm. _What_ wasn’t a big deal? Had he seen? Did he know? “W-what?”

“Anna, you’re redder than your dress.” His eyes were all big, blue concern, his smile gentle and reassuring. “If the number of drunk retirees I’ve seen stumbling around here is anything to go by, you can’t _possibly_ be the first person to break a glass.”

A little rivulet of matcha had made its way to their knees. Ben’s pants would stain. The tea was warm on the bare skin of her knee, and her cheek, when she reached up to touch her face, was hot on her palm; but her mind remained blank. At last, with her head still bowed, she dared sneak a glance to the side.

The atrium was thinning out. White-jacketed waiters circled, collecting discarded glasses, and only a few islands of chatting patrons still studded the floor. Through them, she had a clear view of the place where he’d stood.

It was empty.

He was gone.

She … wasn’t sure how she felt about that, exactly.

A few of those lingering guests were stealing glances at her, she realized. Abby had snagged a passing waiter and seemed to be explaining the situation, while Caleb, helpful as ever, just looked on with clear amusement. Anna’s face grew even hotter. She averted her gaze as she used Ben’s shoulder to lever herself back to her feet.

“… I’m going to go find some napkins,” she announced to the floor. Then, not waiting for a response, she ducked around Abigail’s side and fled.

And as she wove through the crowd toward the refreshment tables, she hated herself for the knowledge that she’d been _right_.

 _Have fun tonight_ , Abby had said. _Promise me_ , she’d said. And Anna, naive as ever and always willing to try again— _keep going, keep fighting, keep the shop afloat, find a new love, try a new man, you’ll get it right this time, you have to get it right eventually_ —Anna had promised she would, despite the taste of ozone in the air and the coiling unease in her belly that had _told her_ , right from the start, that something terrible lay on the horizon. And now, as ever, a storm had come crashing down on her hopeful head, and its name was Edmund Hewlett.

Edmund fucking Hewlett of the ridiculous cheekbones and the ridiculous metaphors and the ridiculous, stubborn refusal to admit how bad he’d screwed her over. Edmund Hewlett, whom she’d never again wanted to think of. Edmund Hewlett whom she could _not_ think of, in fact, without finding herself torn this way and that by a nauseating mixture of bitterness and anger and shame, was _here_ , had _seen_ her, had been _looking_ at her from across the room—unmistakably _looking at her!_

What the hell was up with _that?_

What had he felt, she wondered, when he’d seen her. The shock of recognition? The vertigo of encountering an unexpected item in an incongruous context, the juxtaposition so jarring that, for a moment, you aren’t certain it’s real? An immediate twist of aversion, dislike, unpleasant associations and the drag of memories which were not particularly flattering to either of them. She wondered if he’d felt anything like what she was feeling, and wondered why, if he had, he would continue to look.

Her only consolation—her only spot of enduring hope: He had gone. He hadn’t lingered, hadn’t continued to watch. Had not, thank every god in all the heavens, _approached_. And it was a big place, the museum, after all. The refreshment tables came into view, and Anna picked up her pace. A few guests were still picking at the hors d'oeuvres; she scanned for napkins, seemed to recall them being about over yonder, past where a clump of chatting ladies stood. Yes, she could just glimpse, beyond the ladies, someone picking a few up.

Anyway—the museum. A big place. And since Hewlett hadn’t stuck around, presumably he looked forward to a confrontation as little as she did. But there was plenty of room for them both, and no reason they couldn’t weather the rest of the evening without running into each other at all—

The group of ladies moved, revealing the napkins ... and the man currently grabbing a handful of them. Anna staggered to a stop. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she blurted, scandalizing the ladies and making Hewlett nearly drop his wine as he whirled.

Wine in one hand; napkins in the other. A fairly stupid look on his stupid face and nothing for her to hide behind except empty air. Hewlett blinked at her, and for the first time in—oh; it seemed a very long time, and not long at all—for the first time since that awful day, Anna truly looked at him.

Three, Anna realized. Three times: that was the number of occasions she’d actually seen Hewlett before tonight. And only two times, if she counted Whitehall and his second visit to her shop as one. Bizarre to think that he could have so deeply impacted her life when they’d only met in person three times. More bizarre still to discover that, though three times had been more than enough to engrave the idea of him in her mind, the actual sight of him—cut out of his expected context and dropped before her now—seemed in some way incongruous with her memory of him. Almost as though she’d never seen him before at all.

The basics, of course, remained the same. Pasty skin and neat, dark hair; an expensive suit, one of dozens in his wardrobe, no doubt; completely unnecessary bone structure. And there was something familiar, too, in the oddly military way he snapped to attention at the sight of her. But either she’d forgotten the way expressions could flicker across his face, a rapid switch from blank to smiling to reserved and then to smiling again in a heartbeat, or that was new.

“Mrs. Strong! I, ah.” Another round of microexpressions; he cycled through eagerness, uncertainty, and discomfort before settling on a sort of dignified, aloof nonchalance. His chin tilted up, and his voice was smooth and very posh as he nodded toward the table. “I … thought you might appreciate a napkin.”

His self-satisfied little smile suggested he was very pleased with how he’d handled the situation.

Anna didn’t waste time with microexpressions. Anna just stared. “What are you doing here?”

The smile twitched uncertainly, but remained in place. He glanced over his shoulder once again. In unison, both hands pointed toward the table. “…This is where the napkins were.”

“No, I mean—” Her voice was creeping louder; she forced it down to a hiss. “ _What are you doing here?_ ”

“ _Ah._ ” His own voice dropped as well. The lower pitch made him sound somewhat less like a posh asshole but emphasized that weird, gravelly quality in his voice. Maybe he’d been a smoker, once; or maybe he was just, in general, weird. “Well, um. You see, I was trying not to be boring—”

“What?”

“—and I just so happened to—I never imagined _you’d_ be here, of course!” The startled laugh that burst from him made it clear how ridiculous _that_ notion was. Anna’s spine stiffened at the implication. It grew no less stiff as he continued, “Of all places, you know, and all times! Terribly unlikely, um, statistically speaking, and it hardly seems the sort of … Well. Needless to say. Seeing you here was quite a shock.”

Unlikely. Yes. Yeah, she supposed she was rather unlikely, a clear charity case, obviously out of place amidst all these upper-class snobs. _He_ must fit right in. Anna breathed in deep through her nose. “A shock. Yes. Hard to believe they let us poor people in here, too.”

The remains of his smile fell away.

“No, no, you misunderstand; I only meant—”

“I have just as much right to be here as you, you know. _More_ right.”

“—not _here_ specifically, what I mean is, _anywhere_ , or—no. No.” All at once, he put up his hands, wine sloshing and napkins rustling, and stopped. His eyes shut. His face stilled. And his voice, when he spoke again, was as flat and stern as the line of his mouth. “You know, Mrs. Strong, I do believe you knew very well what I meant. Forgive me. It’s a failing on my part, really— _rubbish_ at small talk—but clearly, I am simply incapable of opening my mouth around you without saying _something_ to which you can take offense.”

Doubtless, his grave decorum—all upturned nose and tight-lipped frown—was intended to make him appear dignified, magisterial. Too bad he bore such a resemblance to an overly serious toad. Anna had to laugh. “Are you seriously blaming me for _being offended?_ ”

“I am simply suggesting, Mrs. Strong, that if you insist on leaping to the absolute worst conclus—”

“If you don’t want me to be offended, may _I_ suggest you stop saying offensive things? I know I’m not as highly trained at manipulating language and combing fine print for _life-destroying loopholes_ as _some_ people, but it’s just a thought.”

His turn for a dismissive huff. What an unattractive sound. “For heaven’s sake, madam. I had hoped we could put all that behind us.”

“ _Behind us_.” Her voice was hollow. “Well, you _were_ generous enough to get me napkins. How could I hold a little thing like foreclosure against you.”

Hewlett squinted at her with his lips pressed tight and his jaw working from side to side. _You should apologize to him_ , Mary Woodhull had told her, and for a moment—not for a long moment, but in, perhaps, that last moment before he spoke, as she looked at him in front of the tables and realized how little she knew of him, after all—Anna had almost been prepared to. But perhaps, in this instance at least, he was right. Perhaps they were _both_ simply incapable of opening their mouths around each other without something ugly falling out.

Hewlett closed his eyes again and took a deep breath in through his nose. With an air that screamed superiority, he thrust the handful of napkins toward her.

She eyed them narrowly. It was tempting—oh so very, _very_ tempting—to march past him and get them off the table instead, just on principle … but he might take that to mean she was intimidated by him. As though anyone could be. Anna stepped just close enough to dart out a hand.

“Thank you.”

“You are quite welcome. Ah, see. Was that so very hard?”

At her look, he elaborated, “I made a civil gesture, you chose not to interpret it as a veiled insult and thus were able to respond with civility in kind. A triumph of modern diplomacy, truly. With practice, I imagine we could become quite adept at it.” The beginnings of a smile, of all things, twitched at one corner of his mouth.

How could he go from scowling one moment to smiling the next? If Mary had done that, or Abe or even Caleb, Anna would’ve thought it a deliberate tactic meant to throw her off balance. But on Hewlett, the expression was so subtle and so brief that she wasn’t sure he even realized he’d done it.

Biting her lip, she glanced up at him askance. The napkins she held against her chest. “A pity we’ll never find out.”

Hewlett’s chuckle was a bitter, husky sound. “No. No, I don’t imagine we shall.” When he bowed his head toward the floor, the angle emphasized the harsh lines of his face and they way his mouth twisted as he continued, quietly and all in a rush, “Truth be told, I had intended to offer you more than napkins. A, um, a drink. I had intended to buy you one, if you’d let me, that is. To replace the one you dropped. But now I see that a surer way to please you would be simply to stay out of your way.”

He spoke so low and so fast that at first, Anna was certain she’d misheard. A drink. After what she’d done with the coffee, why on earth would he want to buy _her_ , of all people, a _drink?_

“To that end, Mrs. Strong, I shall simply ask one more thing: physical sciences, or life?”

She must have misheard. About the drink. Aside from Ben and Caleb, no one had bought her a drink since—since Selah. Anna stirred herself from her thoughts. “Physical or—what?”

Hewlett pointed toward one of the large doorways leading off the atrium, toward the exhibits. His wrists were very thin, she noticed, and his hands surprisingly square. “According to the museum’s website, the building is arranged roughly according to a division of the physical and life sciences. Ah, that is to say, life sciences on the ground floor—zoology, medicine, botany, that sort of thing—and physical sciences on the first. Physics, mathematics, engineering … astronomy. Though I of course have the greatest respect for life sciences, I happen to prefer the physical. So. I, ah … I imagine I will be spending the better part of the evening upstairs.”

“Oh. O-of course.” The flash of gratitude she felt once she realized what he was doing caught her off guard. Though it wasn’t strictly true, she assured him softly, “I like life sciences, myself.”

“Yes. Somehow, I thought you might.” His free hand slipped into his pocket, and Hewlett drained the last of his wine. The empty glass he set on the table with great precision. Then he gave her a nod that lingered like a bow. “I truly apologize, Mrs. Strong, if I have marred your evening in any way.”

When he was gone, Anna stood another few moments with the napkins against her chest, unmoving. Numbly, she wiped the matcha from her knee. And she wished, as she turned to head back to Ben and the others, that she could simply— _feel_.

Feel anger, feel joy, feel hatred, bitterness, melancholy, mirth; Anna didn’t give a damn what she felt, so long as she could feel it so strongly that it left no room for anything else. She could hate Hewlett, maybe. She could live with hating him. She could live with forgiving him, too, so long as she could forgive him fully, with no reservations, and she could live with never thinking about him at all, but what she could _not_ live with was this constant uncertainty, this inability to reconcile these conflicting emotions of guilt, shame, anger, confusion, dismay into one unified theory of how to feel toward Hewlett.

Too much data to process, too many disparate impressions and sensations and doubts, and this—this place was _not_ where Anna belonged, this was _not_ who Anna _was_. She was not a scientist. She did not carefully collate and curate her experiences and force them all into some sort of dry, logical framework. She did not hold her every thought beneath a lens. She just made tea.

And tea was _art_. Tea was alchemy, tea was poetry, tea was personal and esoteric and unquantifiable, a language that didn’t need to make sense to anyone except the person drinking it. With tea, there was no more need to justify why matcha put her in mind of cloudy days than why the smoke-pine scent of lapsang would always make her think of Abe. Not logical, maybe, and maybe it didn’t account for every separate detail, but none of that meant it was any less real. With tea, all she had to do was close her eyes and let the steam wash over her face and the taste over her lips, and there—in that intuitive, unselfconscious response to the scent, the flavor, the complex symphony of tannins and phenols and floral notes that each stirred some separate, subtle strain within her, pulling to mind memories, emotions, wants—there, there was no need to analyze her reaction, no need to think. Only to experience. To feel.

She wished she could simply feel, because when it came to Edmund Hewlett, she didn’t have the first idea what to think.

 

\---

 

“Miss Anna, Miss Abigail! Oh, look how lovely you are, sweet girls!”

That Mrs. Rios would corner them eventually had always been a certainty. Better to arm oneself with a fake boyfriend than imagine the inevitable could be delayed. But after all that mess with Hewlett and the strain of trying to act normal around her friends, Anna had hoped to put it off till she felt a little less like an absolute heel.

Alas, they’d barely made it halfway through their first exhibit—a large room filled with fossilized bones and dioramas of utahraptors stalking through a plain—before her favorite customer swooped in.

“And you have brought friends!” the older woman observed in a chirp. Operation Fake Boyfriend seemed to be working, at least, the evening’s first success. Perhaps working too well. Mrs. Rios stood with a stem of wine in one hand and the other hand curled around Ben’s bicep, which he’d thus far tolerated with nothing more than a bemused smile. Her voice dropped to a stage whisper as she leaned closer to the girls and added, “ _Very handsome_ friends! This one is prettier than all of us!”

She nodded oh-so-discreetly toward Ben and fixed Anna with a very serious look. “ _Anna._ Well _done_.”

Anna and Abby, with tolerance born of long practice; traded sly little smiles; Ben looked like he was trying to decide whether to be flattered. Only Caleb, of all people, didn’t even crack a grin. Out of the corner of her eye, Anna saw him give an odd smirk. Then he turned away to read a plaque about hadrosaurs.

“You must be Mercedes. Anna’s told us so much about you.” Ben placed his hand over hers on his arm and smiled down at her with enough sweet, blue-eyed magnificence to melt the Arctic. “Major Benjamin Tallmadge. It’s a pleasure.”

It was possible that the wine was to blame for the redness of Mrs. Rios’s cheeks. Just not very likely.

“Young man, the pleasure, I think, is _all_ mine.” Caleb’s eyes looked in danger of rolling right out of his skull. He’d never been very good at not being the center of attention, but surely he could handle a few minutes out of the spotlight. Or a few seconds, at least. “So. _Major Tallmadge_. How are you liking my museum? It is beautiful, don’t you think?”

“Very beautiful. Though we haven’t gotten to see much of it yet, I’m afraid—”

“Yeah, all we’ve seen are fuckin’ dinosaurs,” Caleb cut in. He gave the plaque a dismissive flick with one finger. “Bored to death of fuckin’ dinosaurs. When we gonna see something interestin’?”

In the enclosed space, his voice was loud enough to make heads turn all around. Abigail politely cleared her throat. “I like dinosaurs.”

“We’ve been in here like two seconds, Caleb. I think you’ll survive a few more—”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Bored! Can’t help it. Enjoy your dead lizards.” With a sarcastic salute, he wheeled away from them all and headed for the exit. Anna could’ve sworn she heard him mutter, as he passed, “Gonna find somethin’ with some goddamn explosions.”

Anna exchanged a look with Ben. Flurries of information passed between them, conveyed by nothing more than some raised eyebrows and the understanding of lifelong friends. At last, Anna sighed. “Fine, I’ll do it,” she muttered, and strode after him as fast as her heels would allow.

Caleb hadn’t made it far. She caught sight of him just a short ways down the hall, his messy hair an immediate tip-off. He didn’t stop when he heard the clacking of her heels, but he did slow down enough for her to catch up.

“You didn’t have to be rude.”

“Yeeeah. I don’t hafta do lots of things. Usually still do.” He gave her a shrug and half a grin, looking so terribly young and boyish without the beard that she couldn’t find it in herself to be very annoyed with him. The shrug was probably as close to an apology as she could hope for, anyway. “What can I say? I’m like a shark, Annie, if I don’t keep movin’, I die.”

Anna sighed and leaned her arm against his. “You could’ve been _accurate_ , at least. Dinosaurs weren’t lizards and you know it.”

He scowled when she suggested they go back and scowled harder when she asked if she should text Ben, so Anna resigned herself to playing babysitter for a while. Caleb chattered about this and that as they wandered through the halls. Careened, more like; Caleb’s pace probably couldn’t be described as wandering. It definitely wasn’t designed for people wearing heels, either, and did not compensate for the amount of maneuvering required in the crowded halls to avoid crashing into overdressed old grannies. Not wanting to be directly responsible for any broken hips, Anna did her best to follow in his wake.

At each split in the hall and in front of each gallery door, Caleb paused to peer inside the exhibit and consider what he found. Apparently, none were up to snuff. They wandered past open halls and galleries filled with interactive displays about medicine, evolution, the human body; they navigated a warren of taxidermy animals in a landscape meant to resemble a natural habitat. They enjoyed some brief success in a room containing live turtles and snakes, which Caleb happily cooed baby-talk at with his nose pressed up against the terrarium glass, but before long, he grew bored even with that, and they wandered back into the hall.

“What exactly are we looking for, dare I ask?” Her feet were beginning to grow sore. They were walking through a room with whale skeletons suspended from the ceiling, their bony fins fanned out at their sides as though they were swimming through air. “I desperately hope I’m wrong, but I could’ve sworn you mentioned something about explosions.”

“I mean, I’ll settle for less if I gotta, but in a perfect world, yeah. Why? Y’know where we can find some?”

“...No.”

“Some use you are. Thought ya’d been here before.” He ignored her objections—she _had_ been here, thank you, but only a couple times, it wasn’t like she’d explored the whole damn place—as he spotted a staircase hiding in a corner of the hall. “C’mon, let’s see what they’ve got stashed away upstairs.”

He sped up before she could catch his arm. “No no, let’s—oh, damn it all—” He was already trotting up the stairs.

Downstairs, with the life sciences, the decor had been much like what she pictured whenever she thought of a museum. Very traditional, Old World, permeated by the slightly musty scents of old animal skins and formaldehyde and the frying circuits of aging animatronic dinosaurs. Upstairs was sleek. Modern. A bit boring, to be honest, full of straight lines and stark colors, but—as she noticed at once—much more _dynamic_ than the exhibits downstairs. Lights flashed over by the optics display. An interactive video was giving onlookers a detailed look at the inner workings of a spaceship. Even the MATHEMATICA room had some life to it. Old men in tuxes and ladies in fox-fur stoles were making fools of themselves as they attempted to complete some sort of challenge involving ropes and basic physics, the sort of thing small children probably figured out in seconds.

There was activity all around, dozens of people everywhere she looked, and among all of them, Anna dreaded the sight of Hewlett. He could be anywhere. Could cross their path at any time— _would_ , indeed, eventually cross their path, more likely than not, and when he did, she’d not have much of a leg to stand on. _She’d_ broken the truce, after all. And with some distance, now, from the initial shock of their earlier encounter, she found herself … regretful, a bit. Not that they’d agreed to avoid one another, but that she hadn’t kept a cooler head. She was better than that. They both were, she supposed.

“ _Adorable_ ,” Caleb gushed. They were standing in a room dedicated to the history of transportation, and Caleb had his hands and face squished right up against the glass of a large display case set into one wall. “Christ Almighty, lookit it! Ain’t it just the cutest little rattletrap of a raft ya ever did see?” He looked at her with soulful eyes. “Anna. Anna, I _want_ it.”

Anna looked. The object of Caleb’s affection was, as far as she could tell, a wooden barrel with a propeller stuck onto one side. Huge, impressive machines loomed all around them, automobiles and steam engines and other powerful works of metal, and, of course, he wanted _this_. “I’m not sure I want to know what you’d do with it. I’m not even sure what you’re _meant_ to do with it.”

“Eh. One of many mysteries we’re unearthin’ tonight, innit. Here’s another one for ya.” The glass squeaked as he turned his head to face her, his cheek still dragging along the case. “Why were you talkin’ ta dorky cufflinks guy?”

No further explanation followed. Just his very serious, eyebrow-raised stare. “Caleb, I know I say this to you a lot … but I honestly don’t have the first clue what you’re talking about.”

He sighed a long-suffering sigh. “Cufflinks guy! Nerd with the snooty accent, y’know? When you were off gettin’ napkins?” Anna went cold, but it must not have shown on her face, for Caleb didn’t seem to notice. Or he did notice but found it funny, because he winked. “Two of ya looked awful familiar, you ask me.”

Her arm dropped from his shoulder as she recoiled. “What the hell, Caleb, were you—were you _spying_ on me?”

“Jesus, Annie, it’s not like I was watchin’ ya from the bushes! You were right out in the middle of the room!” A faceprint remained on the glass when he leaned away; his voice dropped to a mutter as he began buffing it out with his sleeve. “Jeez, I see my friend gettin’ chatted up by some creeper, sue me for keepin’ an eye on the situation. So what’d he want? He bother ya any?”

“If he _had_ , I’d have handled it myself, thanks. And. No.” Her fingers picked nervously in the cuff of her sleeve as she dared a glance at the door. No sight of Hewlett. Not yet. “No, he wasn’t bothering me … He just—”

The quick, distant boom of an explosion echoed through the hall.

Anna looked up, and Caleb snapped alert. More bangs followed in quick succession—sharp, flat cracks of sound that might have been alarming if they weren’t so muffled and thin. A few heads turned other than their own, but none of the passersby seemed very concerned. And Caleb, for his part, was grinning like a madman.

Warily, Anna studied her friend. “Okay,” she began slowly. Caleb was practically vibrating. “Yes. Fine. But if it turns out to be something _actually_ dangerous, we are _not_ sticking around to— _Caleb!_ ”

“Oh, c’mon, girlie! Danger’s just another word for fun!” And with her hand caught up in his and her feet nearly leaving one shoe behind in his hurry, they were off.

 _Crack—crack—crack—_ They dashed down the hall, and with each step, the booms grew louder. Emanating from somewhere behind a pair of tall, acrylic doors at the end of the hall. Beyond the glass lay darkness, at first. A darkness shattered by bursts of violet light that flashed in unison with the next round of rapid explosions—no, not explosions, Anna realized. Not explosions at all.

Thunder.

 

\---

 

“...and that’s what happens when your car tire’s struck by a medium-sized lightning bolt. Of course, the lightning we produce in here is nowhere near as powerful as what you’d encounter in nature, but the principle remains the same.”

From high above the crowd, mounted atop a retractable metal pole, an ordinary car tire descended slowly to earth. Its motion was followed by every eye in the audience and by the finger of the young woman on stage, who wore an earpiece, a mic, and a dressed-up version of the usual museum uniform.

“As you could see, the lightning bolt leapt directly from the Van de Graaff generator to the top of the tire, burst through the gap in the center, then entered the metal pole and, at last, travelled safely into the ground. What can we learn from that? Suppose you’re stuck in your car in a thunderstorm and your car is struck. Now, maybe you think having the rubber tires will keep you safe. And rubber’s a good insulator, sure. But you’ve got maybe two inches of it on your car, and any natural lightning that makes it to the ground has just busted through eight _miles_ of insulating air. So how much difference are those rubber tires really gonna make?”

Pressed up against Anna’s side, Caleb whistled lowly under his breath. “So _this_ is where they keep the good stuff, huh.”

Together, they leaned over the railing of the mezzanine to peer down at the stage below. Though most of the theatre remained thickly shadowed, the center shone gold beneath the glare of spotlights and glowed an eerie red from the lamps set into the floor. And, once again, Anna found herself forced to reconcile the sight of ordinary items in an unexpected context. The tire was nothing special; the pneumatic pole it stood upon was. Likewise the kite, which stood upright on a wire instead of blowing on a string, and the birdcage, which would have looked perfectly normal housing a parakeet if not for the face that it was easily big enough to hold three people.

But there were oddities, too: a copper pole topped with two silver rings; a small metal sphere on a stand. The sort of device, she realized after a moment, that made your hair stand on end when you touched it. And nothing could hold a candle to the center of everyone’s attention.

Looming three stories high on cylinders as thick as grain silos stood twin towers each topped by an enormous sphere. The floor lamps painted their undersides a vivid, unearthly red; their upper curves were lost in the shadows of the ceiling. The way the spheres merged in the center put Anna in mind of her old high-school biology textbooks, all those pastel, oversimplified diagrams of cells splitting apart. It put Caleb, as she learned when he snickered it into her ear, in mind of other things. On principle, she smacked him lightly on the chest.

“So, are you really safe in your car during a lightning storm? And if it’s not the rubber that protects you from electrocution, does anyone have another hypothesis of what might?”

At a nudge and a nod from Caleb, they headed toward the steps leading to the lower level. The crowd was thicker down there, but most were sitting on the series of risers circling the stage; there was still enough room in the aisles to get close and stand.

“No ideas? Seriously, folks? When I put this show on for the ten-year-olds, they _always_ figure it out.”

The stage was only about as high as their knees; they’d managed to get right up next to it by the time a few brave souls began to offer answers. Their tentative words echoed in the acoustics of the room. “The … the road? Asphalt?”

“The upholstery?”

“Trees?”

“Why, the metal frame of your vehicle, of course,” interjected a horribly familiar voice, and suddenly, Anna had only one thought in her brain: _hide_.

“Ooh, they got one-a those hair-standy-uppy thingies! I love those!” Caleb was whispering excitedly at her side. His arm hung lazily around her shoulders; disentangling herself, she tried, as subtly as possible, to slip behind him. “Y’think they’ll let me mess around with it after the show? I wanna—Oh, shit. Oh, _shit_ , Annie, my _beard_. I can’t believe I shaved my _beard_ , it woulda been _so fuckin’ cool_ with my … Um.” He craned his neck around to give her a quizzical frown over his shoulder. “Uh, Anna. Whatcha doin’ back there, girl.”

Oh. Just trying to conceal her entire existence behind his body, of course. She’d thought that would be obvious.

Anna held on to the back of his jacket for support as she hunkered down. “Um ... Hiding.”

“... From _what_.”

She slipped her hand beneath the crook of his arm and pointed.

He sat on the first row of risers, his back very straight and his hands folded in his lap. The harsh light coming off the stage threw every angle of his face into stark relief. It should have made him look harsher, should have made him look older, and, objectively, she supposed it did … But his attentiveness to the show was so eager and so obvious that the effect didn’t quite take.

“What, cufflinks guy?” Caleb began, but his voice was drowned out by the presenter’s.

“Hold up, everybody. This gentleman just suggested something pretty interesting: he thinks it’s the _metal._ Hmmm. Pretty bold hypothesis, sir! How certain are you about that?”

His mouth twisted in a way that could just as easily have been amused as annoyed. “As certain as I imagine you are, miss. Which is to say, 100 percent.”

“Certain enough to bet your life?”

“C’mon, weirdo, get yer ass up.” Anna nearly lost her footing entirely when Caleb twisted around, but only for a moment; he caught her by the waist and hauled her back around to his side. At once, she huddled in close against him, turning her back to Hewlett. Caleb shrugged her off with a scowl. “What the _hell_ is goin’ on with ya, Annie? He ain’t just some guy, is he.”

“ _Caleb! Keep your voice down!_ ”

“ _Anna. Spill_.”

The presenter’s voice shielded theirs as she explained metal’s conductive properties to the crowd; Anna buried her face in Caleb’s shoulder with a groan. “He’s _Mr. Hewlett!_ ”

“Mister who?”

She wished she could melt away into the floor. “ _Mr. Hewlett_ , from _Whitehall._ I threw coffee in his _face._ ”

“Nah! Cufflinks guy? No way!” She couldn’t stop him from craning up on his tiptoes for a better look. Subtle. “Thought ya said he wasn’t that old.”

Fortunately, Hewlett’s attention never strayed from the show. “Okay then, folks,” continued the presenter. She was strolling along the stage, tallying on her fingers as she spoke. “So, we’ve got a handful of votes for cement or asphalt, some takers for wood and fiberglass, and one brave soul in favor of metal. Well, unfortunately, I don’t have any asphalt laying around. And management rejected my proposal to grow a forest in the lightning room, _again_. But it _just so happens_ that I _do_ have something metal.” Spinning on her heel, she once again turned to Hewlett. “So, sir. How about you help me put your theory to the test?”

“Pardon? Ah—ah, no. Thank you.” No delay in his reaction this time, no need for microexpressions; in the moment of comprehension, his face had fallen straight from eager and content to a sort of polite horror. “That really won’t be necessary, I’m … _quite_ content where I am.”

“ _No?_ Sounds to me like you’re not 100 percent certain after all!”

“I am _entirely_ certain, thank you, which is why I don’t believe it’s necessary that I—”

“You know, sir.” The presenter’s voice dropped into a vaguely disappointed tone probably usually reserved for unruly schoolchildren. “The ten-year-olds are _never_ afraid to volunteer.”

There was a stiff moment of silence, and then, a moment later, a scatter of polite applause as Hewlett stood. Again, Anna tried to move away.

“He can’t see ya, y’know, he ain’t lookin’.” Caleb stood close enough for his cheek to press against the side of her head as he spoke. One arm had fallen around her waist. “Heh, poor bastard looks scared shitless, matter of fact. So what’d he want with ya, then? Hold on—” He leaned down so she had to look in his face. “He wasn’t givin’ ya shit for the coffee thing, was he? ‘Cause I’ll—”

“No, he just—”

Down at the other end of the stage, Hewlett stepped up onto the low platform and into the circle of light. His eyes blinked rapidly against the sudden brightness, and one hand lifted to shield his eyes as he staggered forward a few steps more. The presenter looked ecstatic with her victory. Hewlett looked as though temporary blindness was the only thing stopping him from running for the hills.

Perhaps sensing the same possibility, the presenter wasted no time in putting one hand on his shoulder. “Okay, everyone! You may have noticed my gigantic birdcage! Usually, I keep my terror birds in there, but the structure of the cage also makes it really good for simulating the way the metal shell of a car would behave in the event of a lightning strike. So, tonight, we’re gonna use it to put our brave volunteer right in the middle of a storm.”

Could he see her? He was only yards away, and standing higher than her, now, and, oh, if he looked this way, if he saw her, she didn’t know what she’d do. “No, he wasn’t bothering me, he just … tried to help and, um, offered to buy me a drink …”

“Ooh, _Annie!_ Scandalous!”

“Not like _that_ , you _ass_ , he just … It’s just, every time we speak, it devolves into this horrible, awkward ordeal, and I get pissed and he starts talking in riddles and I … I am so very, very confused.” she buried her face in the crook of Caleb’s neck. “Please, just. Tell me when he’s gone.”

“Now,” the presenter was saying, “I’m sure our intrepid investigator is brave enough to conduct this experiment on his own…”

“Aw, you poor li’l thing. I gotcha, girl.” Caleb’s arms enveloped her in one of his trademark bear hugs. She had to give it to him: Caleb gave the best hugs. “You just snuggle right on in.”

“... but tonight’s a very special night, after all, and I reckon there’s room in the cage for one more!”

“Thank you,” Anna mumbled into Caleb’s lapel. His usual faint scent of sweat and sea and beer was undetectable, replaced by some clean, generic soap. She was surprised to find that she missed it. Illogical, perhaps, but soap just didn’t make her think of him. “I probably don’t say this enough, but you are, on occasion, a good friend.”

His chuckle rumbled through her. “You bet yer ass I am. And I’d never horribly betray you or nothin’!”

Anna’s head snapped up. Caleb was grinning down at her with a glint in his eye that very much _did_ make her think of him. The same glint he’d worn when he cut off her pigtail at age six.

“So, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone else as well …”

Immediately, she tried to pull away. His arms held tight. “Caleb,” she warned, but couldn’t keep the trepidation out of her voice; he just grinned all the wider and shifted his grip to her waist. “Caleb, what are you, _no_ —”

“ … Can I get another volunteer?” the presenter cheerfully concluded, just as Caleb picked Anna up and all but shoved her onstage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caleb’s “little rattletrap of a raft” line comes from “A Guide to Piloting the Turtle” on the AMC blog: http://www.amc.com/shows/turn/talk/2015/05/a-guide-to-piloting-the-turtle-annotated-by-caleb-brewster
> 
> In general, the museum exhibits / decor have been inspired by a medley of institutions and heavily distorted by my imagination. In this chapter, however, I do draw from two real ones that I think are fairly iconic: the Mathematica exhibit and "Lightning!" show at the Boston MoS. The lightning show in particular is heavily referenced from theirs. So, credit where credit is due.


	9. Skin Effect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which neither of the dorks is perfect, but by golly, they try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, sorry this one took so long! A difficult chapter + a busy month = I feel like we've been in this museum forever. Probably one more museum chapter after this, then on to the next arc. Here goes!

Later, Edmund would wonder if this was how battles began. Slowly, at first. Quietly. With a creeping unease that settled in the bones of the combatants even before there was any sign of the enemy, leaving the encampment silent and sick with dread. When historians wrote of the great conflicts of centuries long past, in the days when battles were fought on open plains with the men lined up in columns and the commanders well to the back, why did they focus so much on the battles’ ends: the victor, the ramifications, how many dead? What of the _beginnings_ : those last moments of terrible silence as the infantry stood in their orderly, unshielded lines and locked eyes with the men standing on the other side of the field; their enemy, equally vulnerable, equally expendable—locked eyes with their enemy in the silence and waited to hear that terrible first shot?

If they were lucky enough to hear it; for surely someone, at least, would only _feel_ it, and then never again hear anything at all.

An army’s worth of strangers surrounding him. The cannonshot boom of artificial thunder still ringing in his ears and the stage lights beading sweat hot and sticky on the back of his neck, making his collar itch, making his eyes squint, filling him with an absurd paranoia even though he _knew_ that embarrassment was the only thing he had to fear. Until a shape in the corner of his eye stumbled onto the other side of the stage. Edmund only realized the danger when he turned at the sound and saw who it was.

He never did hear a shot, but he was certain he felt it strike.

“Oh, that was—quick!” chirped the young lady someone had seen fit to put in charge of this mad presentation. She threw out a welcoming arm. “Awesome! Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for our second volunteer!”

Mrs. Strong didn’t seem to hear the polite patter of applause. Recovering from her sudden entrance, she stumbled, found her footing, stopped; blinked around herself without a sound. As though she were wondering precisely the same thing he was—namely, what in God’s name she was doing up there. Then, with sudden alacrity, she whirled toward the edge of the stage. He was certain she meant to jump, clearly already regretting whatever mad impulse had brought her here, but she was stopped at the edge by a pair of hands that emerged from the crowd and held her back.

It was the optical equivalent of following a telephone conversation while hearing only one side. Mrs. Strong’s lips moving as she gestured with her hands; the disembodied hands of her acquaintance still just visible. Her head giving an emphatic shake. A moment more of talking, and then she glanced over her shoulder to look at Edmund at last.

The stage lights bleached her face nearly featureless, cutting a stark contrast between skin, hair, dress. But her eyes were dark and fathomless. The shadows around them were so deep, and the distance between her and Edmund so great, that he couldn’t make out her expression at all.

Telepathy had never been his forte. He frowned at her, but her answering frown was no great help; and then the presenter was beckoning them both toward the center of the stage.

Surely Mrs. Strong would refuse. Surely she would spare them both this latest torture. Again, she looked to her friend in the crowd. Her hand lifted. With utmost elegance and poise, she drew a finger sharply across her throat.

Then she was striding toward the presenter, and, for the sake of his pride if nothing else, Edmund had no choice but to follow.

“Okay, guys. Here’s how this is gonna go down.” The presenter had one hand covering her microphone as she chattered. In the corner of his eye, Mrs. Strong was a blur of red that he didn’t dare look at and couldn’t possibly ignore. “So obviously, this is totally safe, okay. Definitely, mostly safe. Just keep your hands at your sides unless I tell you otherwise, do as I do, and don’t freak out. Please promise you won’t freak out.”

The idea that anyone would entrust this overgrown child with sensitive scientific equipment made Edmund feel more ancient than the stars. He leveled her his coolest stare. “Young lady, I assure you. Not once in my life have I ever ‘ _freaked out._ ’”

“Honestly, Mr. 100-Percent-Certain, sir, it’s not really you I’m worried about.” Expectantly, she looked to Mrs. Strong.

Who returned the look with all the practiced steel of one too used to hiding what she felt. _The whites of their eyes_ , Edmund recalled suddenly; he had read, somewhere, that, firearm technology being what it was in centuries past, the soldiers in those pitched battles of old had been trained not to fire until they could see the whites of their enemies’ eyes. Mrs. Strong was close enough now that he could see hers, but it made no difference. Her irises remained as impenetrable and her expression as inscrutable as ever.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she said. “But I’ve been through worse.”

“Oookay, then. Cool. I’mma hold you both to that. Any questions for me?”

Mrs. Strong looked from the cage, up to the generator, and back. For all her apparent calm, Edmund thought her gaze lingered just a few moments too long. “...Do you really take kids up in this thing?”

The presenter burst out laughing.

“Hahaha, nope! Can’t trust ‘em not to stick their fingers through the bars! Oh, which reminds me: don’t stick your fingers through the bars. You could die. I’m so excited, you guys, you have no idea—they’ve _never_ let me take up civvies before!” She uncovered the microphone and held her arms out wide for the audience. “Who’s ready for two and a half million volts of fun!”

 

\---

 

In the weeks and days of quotidian routine that had passed between now and their last meeting, time had taken the edge off the thought of her. Softened the sting of humiliation over what happened at Whitehall, dulled the nauseating pressure of guilt; he had even been well on his way, he’d thought, to forgetting about her entirely, bricking up the memory of her in some abandoned corner of his mind as though he could pretend that he had never met her all. After all: What was Anna Strong to him, truly?

An innocent he’d wronged? A regret?

Or a casualty of war? Collateral damage incurred in the performance of his duties, something to be minimized when possible, of course, but which would always be inevitable in the enforcement of law?

Or nothing more than a pretty stranger he’d never expected to see again?

Start there, then. What she’d been from the first:

Nothing more than a pretty stranger with soulful eyes who’d made him a drink he hadn’t wanted in a shop he had never meant to enter and whose name he had forgotten within moments of first hearing it spoken, just as he had expected to forget her.

There was nothing very interesting, after all, about being pretty. He passed dozens of pretty women on the street every day. He _worked_ with dozens. Mary Woodhull was pretty, as were her friends Ms. Ketcham and the Clarks. In and of itself, the word meant nothing beyond an objective observation that its object had been blessed with features that adequately satisfied certain socially reinforced metrics of proportion, unity, symmetry, and form—not unlike a well-composed painting or a statue sculpted by a skillful hand. But, of course, an observer could recognize that a painting had artistic merit yet still not find it compelling enough to warrant a second glance. So it was with the attractive strangers one might pass on the street. Naturally, one might look at them as they approach, recognize their beauty, admire, for a moment, the sight of them—but in a matter of heartbeats, the moment would pass. As soon as the stranger was out of sight, one would turn one’s eyes forward again and forget about them entirely.

He had thought her pretty the first time he saw her in her shop, then forgotten about her.

He had thought her pretty again at Whitehall—and fearsome, and brave and baffling and atrociously rude; and in the atrium of the museum, he had been able to think of no word for her at all, too much of his attention caught up in the way her dress, a claret deep as any wine he cared to drink, had been reflecting a blush into the hollows of her sternum and along the endless arc of her neck. The effect made it seem as though her skin were so thin and her blood so hot that she was actually glowing from within. If she were a painting, he’d have praised the artist for such a bold use of color and light. And he’d wondered, after he’d left her there with her damned napkins and all her righteous, tiresome wrath, whether the universe would ever give him sufficient time to put her out of his mind.

Now, standing side by side in this Faraday cage with their bodies so close to one another that he fancied he could feel the electricity of her nerves, he knew that he would never manage to forget her after this.

In a series of pneumatic jolts and shudders, the cage began to rise. In the center, at the controls, stood the presenter, narrating a steady stream of secondary school–level physics to the audience as they rose toward the van de Graaff generator above. He and Mrs. Strong stood behind, as far apart as possible given the size of the cage. So, not terribly far at all. She was looking up, her profile a delicate sweep of nose and graceful line of throat as she craned her neck to watch the looming metal orbs, and he was looking, openly and half against his will, at her.

Her eyes flicked toward him. He looked away.

The presenter’s narration and the growling machinery nearly drowned her sigh. But he could never have ignored the mellow hush of her voice. “Don’t worry, Mr. Hewlett. I’m unarmed.”

The same lamps that lit the orbs painted her in red light, the color bleeding from her dress and up across her chest until he hardly knew where fabric ended and skin began. Her head canted wryly to one side. “Even if I _had_ a drink on me, I wouldn’t go flinging liquid around anywhere near all this ‘fun.’ Consider yourself safe.”

“Mrs. Strong, you give yourself too little credit entirely. I find you quite dangerous enough on your own.”

Her lips quirked oddly. Such full lips. “In what way?”

“In every way. In your convictions. In your skills of conversational combat. In that dress.” The view of the audience from this high was _fascinating_ , very fascinating indeed. He daren’t look her way. “I, ah. I … hope the life sciences were to your liking?”

A silence he didn’t know what to make of. “... They were all right. I’m … I’m sorry I invaded your physics. I didn’t mean to cross enemy lines.”

“No no, it’s—already forgiven.” The cage was slowing down. Above them, the generator loomed impossibly large, and he knew he had but a moment left to speak. “Is that always to be how you see me, then? As your enemy?”

Her teeth caught at her lip, worrying it in an unnecessarily distracting way—but then the cage was shuddering to a halt.

The presenter grinned back at them only once. “Y’all ready?”

Before either could answer, she pressed the button on the center console, and the generator began to hum.

It began slowly. Quietly. With a hum that seemed to start at the edges of the cavernous room and work its way in, creeping in through the floor of the cage and up through his feet until his very bones seemed to vibrate. Even though he knew there was no cause to fear, Edmund felt a prickle of unease.

Then the first bolt struck.

The annals of human history were filled with the exploits of daring, adventurous, fearless men—and Edmund had always known he was not one of them. From the verses of Homer and Virgil, whose galloping dactyls and quick-striking spondees had stirred Edmund’s heart even before he learned Greek or Latin well enough to understand them, to the driest history textbook ever inflicted upon modern schoolchildren, it seemed that society had always held a special place of reverence for men of action. Soldiers, warriors, generals; conquerors and liberators, defenders and aggressors; men beloved by the gods for their wrath and envied by their peers for their strength and accomplishments. And _feared_ , perhaps, more than a little by gods and peers alike for much the same reasons. Such men had been the knights of Edmund’s childhood fairy tales and the phaser-toting heroes of his favorite television programs. And it was a long time indeed since he’d stopped pretending, even in play, that he would ever be a fighter of that sort.

The discipline of soldiers, yes, he admired that. The warrior’s strength of arm and of spirit; the nobility of dedicating one’s life to service to one’s country, defense of one’s countrymen, and the championship of law and order. But it was one thing to agree with the principles of military life and quite another to imagine yourself suited to it. Just as it was one thing to sit comfortably in your armchair with a nice cup of coffee, reading some poet’s account of war, and another thing entirely to fight in a battle yourself.

Being in the cage when the lightning struck was the difference between studying a diagram of a rifle versus feeling the stock slam into your shoulder as the taste of gunpowder flared acrid on your tongue.

A deafening _crack_ , louder than anything he had thought possible, a blinding flash as a violet bolt leapt from the generator to the bars of the cage, and this was _nothing_ like relaxing peacefully with a lovely espresso while watching the rain run down the window of his flat, nothing even like watching this same demonstration from the floor. Rationally, he _knew_ he was safe, but what good was reason when his heart was hammering and his nerves were thrumming and his eyes and ears alike were so bombarded that he couldn’t even think? About as good as knowing that g = 9.81 m/s 2 when one is plummeting to one’s death. Instinctively, Edmund stepped away from the bars, bumping into Mrs. Strong as she did the same.

Their arms pressed together and stayed. He fully expected her to recoil from him at once. The fact that she did not was his first clue that something was dreadfully wrong.

The woman who had charged into Whitehall with all the odds stacked against her and had the courage to fight anyway; the woman who had never backed down, never surrendered an inch in any of their conversations, never accepted _his_ surrenders or apologies in any qualified form, holding fast to her dignity and her strength as she weathered terrible storms and allowed him only the most Pyrrhic of victories— _that_ woman, who he may indeed have forgotten forever if she had not been so brave, was staring at the bursts of lightning with her lips ajar and her eyes so wide he could see the whites all around. Each bolt lit a violet flash in her irises. She looked pale and paralyzed and—

—terrified. Bold, brazen Mrs. Strong, was afraid.

A bolt faded away, and at last, none followed. Over the ringing in his ears, Edmund could hear the presenter just behind him addressing the audience, asking them if they knew why they were safe in the cage. Edmund couldn’t hear their responses and found he didn’t care. Tentatively, he placed two fingers at Mrs. Strong’s wrist, taking care to touch her sleeve rather than her skin.

“Mrs. Strong? Are you—”

Her hand twitched just out of reach. “I, I’m fine. Completely fine. Just. Not … what I was expecting.” But her gaze remained fixed on the generator, and all the alluring red shadows pooled in her sternum and throat were shifting rapidly as her chest rose and fell with breath.

She didn’t know, he realized as the presenter fielded the audience’s erroneous suggestions. Assaulted by light and sound and all the violent intensity of one of nature’s most powerful forces, and Mrs. Strong didn’t even know what was keeping them safe. If that knowledge was only a small comfort to him, how awful must it be to be entirely without it? He cleared his throat to draw her eye.

“The skin effect.”

“What?” An incredulous stare. “What are you … Why do you do that?”

“Pardon?”

“ _That_. You keep doing that. Suddenly introducing random topics with no segue and no explanation of why you’re even talking about it, as, as though I’m simply supposed to _know_ —”

“Oh, for heaven’s—the cage. The lightning! It works because of a principle known as the skin effect. Not skin in, you know, the epithelial sense, but the outer surface of a thing; you see—”

“Our bold volunteers have done a great job so far, huh!” The presenter’s words drowned him out. The audience managed a dubious cheer. When Edmund glanced over his shoulder, she was looking back at them with a wide smile. “But let’s kick it up a notch for round two. What do you say, sir? You still sure about this?”

Her acting was decent, appropriately skeptical for the audience’s benefit, but her eyes were calling on him to play along. Mrs. Strong remained motionless at his side. Her shoulders stiff, her breath shallow and hard.

 _Fearless_ Edmund was not, but if fearless was what Mrs. Strong needed right now, he could at least pretend.

“Quite sure, thank you. Shall we proceed?”

“Awesome. So, everybody, as you can see, we’re obviously safe _inside_ the cage … But probably only cause the electricity’s staying in the metal, right? What happens if you’re sitting in your car during a thunderstorm and you happen to touch the frame?”

With an air of great significance, she placed a finger on the inside of one of the bars of the cage. She covered her microphone before looking to Edmund. “ _Just_ the inside, okay? And only if you want to, I mean. It’s totally up to y’all.”

“Why wouldn’t we? It’s nothing to fear.” But when he touched his own finger to the bars, Mrs. Strong spoke up in a hiss:

“Are you _mad?_ Are you trying to get yourself _killed?_ ”

He couldn’t hold back a smile. “Why, Mrs. Strong. One would think you’d mind if I did!”

Her expression turned so gutted that he immediately regretted the quip; voice dropping to the soothing sort of hush he’d use with a skittish horse, he assured, “No no, please, forgive me. Don’t be alarmed. It’s really perfectly safe...” But she’d already begun fiercely shaking her head.

“You _are_ mad. You’re all mad. I’m stuck thirty feet off the ground in a fucking birdcage with a crazy girl and two and a half million volts of electricity and _you_ , and, and _now_ —”

That telltale, bone-shaking hum again as the generator warmed up again; ozone tingled on Edmund’s tongue. Mrs. Strong hid her face in her hands.

“—oh my god, now I’m going to be stuck up here with your _corpse_ —”

“I, ah, I think that highly unlikely, but—”

“—and after all I—after the way I’ve treated y—”

The first bolt.

He was prepared this time; he didn’t jump. In the pulses of relative quiet between bolts, he could hear some true cheers this time as the speaker grandstanded a bit, running her finger along the inside of the cage to track as near to where the bolts were striking as possible. Edmund’s own finger remained pressed against the inside of the cage, and he, of course, felt nothing. No shock, no static, not even a tingling where his hand touched the bar … Only the coolness of the metal on his skin and a tiny skip in his heart when Mrs. Strong uncovered her face and looked at him, unharmed and quite uncorpselike, with an expression of overwhelming relief. As though she’d never been happier to see someone safe in her life.

She was right: he was mad. He _must_ be mad, for only a madman would dare to hope that a look like that from a woman who’d made her distaste for him so clear meant that anything had changed between them. Certainly only a madman would do what he did next.

Keeping his finger on the bar, he held his free hand out to her. He nearly had to shout to be heard. “ _Won’t you try?_ ”

Mrs. Strong looked at his palm as though it were some sort of trap. He remained still, certain that any movement now would surely only frighten her off for good. Neither moved for two more bolts. Until suddenly, in a moment of darkness between bursts of light, he felt her hand.

Nothing more than fingertips on his palm—a connection so small and so tremulous; yet small things could sometimes mean the world.

Her skin was cool. The texture slightly rough, the pressure of her hand on his nothing more than a bird-bone weight. For a moment, he couldn’t help but think how much he should like to feel those fingertips ghosting along the thinnest skin of his throat. But all that was nothing to the thrill of being given her trust. Of feeling her shoulder press into his arm as she moved to his side and for once did not shy away. And though it was absurd to think they were in any danger of feeling the electricity that danced along the outside of the cage, he still would have sworn he could feel the current racing through his nerves during every moment they spent standing hip to hip with her fingertips touching the bars and his hand enfolding hers.

Too soon—too soon the lightning stopped, the generator quieted, and then came the ringing silence and the distant ripple of applause. Edmund scarcely remembered to breathe. Mrs. Strong must have forgotten as well, to judge by the flush in her face. Her gaze was downcast, but her mouth was curved up, biting her lip against a tentative smile.

As the presenter made her closing remarks, Edmund canted his head nearer to Mrs. Strong’s. “Thank you for volunteering. I don’t believe I could have endured that alone.” Their joined hands dropped from the bars and fell into the space between their thighs, their fingers still loosely curled together around one another’s palms.

Her smile nearly pulled free. Though her lashes were long and thick and lovely, he wished they wouldn’t hide her eyes. “Excuse my language, Mr. Hewlett, but: horseshit. You didn’t need me. And I didn’t volunteer.”

“Nonetheless. I could have asked for no better comrade-in-arms.”

The cage began to descend. In a moment, they would part, the surrealness of the past few minutes shattered by the return to solid ground and status quo, and he would lose any excuse to stand so near. Any moment now, surely, he would lose her touch.

But her hand remained in his until they were safely on the ground.

 

\---

 

A dazed return to the blinding lights of the stage; a spirited thank-you from the presenter overlaid with applause from the audience, simultaneously congratulating them for being good sports and ushering them off stage; and somewhere in the rush, he lost her, pulled apart by a moment’s indecision and the currents of the dispersing crowd.

How empty his hand felt without hers. How cold. He made it out the auditorium but lingered just beyond the doors, unwilling, just yet, to give up hope.

It was only a few minutes before he heard the door opening behind him, followed by the delicate _click_ of heels.

“Mr. Hewlett. May I—have a word.”

Too many distractions in the hall, too many … witnesses? _Observers_ , say. Edmund followed her down a neglected hall and into a tucked-away little room in a corner that none of the other guests seemed to have discovered. A room filled entirely with flowers.

Ferns, flowers, fruits and succulents and stems; a grid of glass cases cut the room into aisles, and each case was a shrine to Kingdom Plantae. “Oh, how lovely,” Edmund chirped, leaning over the first case he came to. It contained an orchid with petals that lolled like purple tongues. “Look at the state of them! I can’t imagine how they’ve remained so well preserved.”

“They’re glass.”

Mrs. Strong’s voice was a murmur from two rows down. He could just see her behind the edge of a case.

“Pardon?”

“The flowers. They’re glass, every bit of them. Nothing in here is real.”

He might have scoffed, the level of detail seemed so absurd—every dimple on the orchid’s anthers articulated, every spine of a cactus gleaming sharp and fragile, from the inch-long thorns to the needles as short and fine as peach fuzz—but a glance at the nearest placard proved definitive. “Oh. Oh yes, you’re—quite right. I would never have known.”

A low hum. Softly, he heard her: “Yes, well. Appearances, as they say—” her fingertips slid over a pane of glass, “—deceive.”

It was a moment, Edmund thought, best served by restraint. He wandered far enough down the aisle to bring her into clear view, but no closer, and fought the urge to speak.

He only had to fight a few moments. As though steeling herself, Mrs. Strong took a deep breath.

“I’m shit with metaphors.”

“…Oh.” He wasn’t entirely certain why she looked so ashamed of the fact, but far be it from him to make light. “That’s a—a common failing, I think. I shouldn’t scold yourself too harshly for it.”

She began to shake her head, couldn’t seem to stay still, in fact, her feet shifting, her hands fidgeting in her lap. In obvious aggravation, she continued, “I’ve been trying to think of a way to say this elegantly. Circuitously. With, you know, an analogy or an allusion or something. Like you did with all that _Iliad_ stuff before. Partly because I thought that sort of thing would appeal to you, but also, I suppose, because I hoped it might be … easier on me. But it all seems sort of disingenuous. Sort of trite. Maybe I’m not clever enough, or maybe it’s just that I was raised to be more direct … So.” Her shoulders squared. “So, all I can say, really. Is that I’m sorry.”

“For—for not finding a metaphor? Ah, that’s not a problem, really, I don’t—”

She laughed. Actually, truly laughed, not a bitter chuckle or an incredulous scoff. For half a breath, he felt instinctively offended as he wondered what she could possibly be mocking him for now. But her voice was rich and even _warm_ as she looked down at her hands and continued, “No, that’s what I’m trying to _say_. _I’m sorry_. For Whitehall. For everything. For jumping to conclusions and making assumptions and blaming you for things you were hardly involved in. I was …I _am_ angry. I can’t regret being angry. But I regret taking it out on you.”

Through lowered lashes, she looked up. “So, to answer your question, Mr. Hewlett: no. No, I don’t see you as my enemy. Not if you don’t see me as yours.”

Maddening how, when the moment finally appeared, he never seemed to know what to say. How to be emphatic without seeming overeager? How to make her understand how little he cared about their past disagreements, how unnecessary her apology was, without sounding as though he didn’t appreciate the significance of it? As it was, it seemed terribly insufficient, and yet was all he knew how to do, simply to smile softly and say, “My dear Mrs. Strong. I assure you. I never did.”

The silence that followed was too intimate and too taut. He had never dared plan beyond this moment. Clearly, neither had she. Her feet shifted; his collar seemed unusually tight. With a clearing of his throat, Edmund turned brightly to look at the nearest case.

“Astounding, isn’t it!” Even too his own ears, his enthusiasm sounded a tad forced. “Glass! You could hide any one of these flowers in a bouquet of real ones and I daresay I’d never know the imposter till it cut me. To think of the workmanship that must have gone into them, the attention to … Ah!” Mrs. Strong frowned quizzically at his grin. “I do believe I’ve found a friend of yours. Come see.”

An assuming plant with cupped white flowers and slender, teardrop-shaped leaves. Even knowing they were fake, the petals appeared supple and soft, and the leaves were perfectly detailed down to their serrated edges. Two taps of his finger on the case. “ _Camellia sinensis_. You know, I don’t believe I’d ever thought to wonder what tea looked like before it was processed into, well, tea. Somehow, I never imagined it flowered.”

It didn’t escape his notice that she had moved close enough to look at the plant but not quite close enough to touch. “I suspect we could fill volumes with the things you don’t know about tea. So there’s something you like about it after all.”

Edmund sniffed. “I suppose it’s not _entirely_ unappealing.”

“What a ringing endorsement. I should’ve hung that up outside the shop, great big letters, you know—would’ve really drawn in the crowds.” He chuckled as she continued. “At this rate, maybe someday, you could’ve even choked down a glass.”

“Mm, _well;_ mustn’t get carried away. Though perhaps I did judge too hastily. I believe I can understand now why you, at least, should have such an affinity for it.” At the tilt of her head, he explained, “Well—it’s quite fascinating, isn’t it? That the flowers should appear so delicate, yet the leaves be so assertive in their flavor—so strong. I think that very fitting for you indeed.”

Her head tilted even further. She ought to be more careful of her neck. “I thought you didn’t care for the flavor.”

“Ha, well. Well, no.”

“Too bitter?”

“I … suppose it’s not for everyone, is all.”

“Hm.” Her fingernails tapped on the glass, a considering _tmp_. “So. You think the flowers are pretty, but once you actually get a taste—once you put appearances aside and try the actual essence of the thing—it’s … what? A bit harsh? Or just not what you were expecting it to be.”

Her tone was not harsh. Not hostile, not demanding, not layered with the sickly-sweet honey of a trap. Only distant; detached. And that worried him more.

Edmund no longer even pretended to look at the tea. “… Mrs. Woodhull intimated that this most recent round of hardships has not been your first. I … believe anyone might be forgiven a touch of bitterness, in light of that.”

“Mary?” A startled laugh. “Oh—oh _God_. You talked to _Mary_ about _me?_ ”

“Not in any great detail! I wasn’t, you know—I wouldn’t _pry_. I merely … inquired after your well-being. In a spirit of neighborly concern. I … have not been entirely at ease with my involvement in your situation, you see, and—may I be frank?”

Her silence seemed permission. Matching her pose, he leaned down with his elbows on the glass and looked her in the eye, hoping he could find the right words.

“I was … immensely struck by your courage at Whitehall. Even the first time we met—I don’t know if you recall, but suffice to say, you were not inclined to take no for an answer! And although, I admit, rather vexed with you at the time, the more I considered the matter … Abandoned by your husband; beset by troubles on all sides; all you must have been through, and all at no fault of your own … I could not help but feel a great sympathy for you. I can only imagine how much strength it must have taken to endure it all—how much patience, how much faith. And that you should now have the grace to apologize for your own mistakes, and the charity to forgive me mine … In my opinion, Mrs. Strong, those facts speak to your character vastly more than anything you might have done in a moment of anger and grief.”

Her expression changed as he spoke, but not in a way he had expected—nor hoped. From cautious but open to troubled and closed. Her gaze slid away. “You make me sound like the heroine of some tragic novel. _Grace. Charity. Faith_.”

“…Are those such terrible things?”

“No—they’re just—not very me.” When she looked back at him, her face was firm in resolve. “Did Mary tell you why she hates me?”

“ _Hates_ you? …No—no, I very much doubt that. Mrs. Woodhull is an exceptionally gentle girl.”

“She hates me. Or if she doesn’t, she has reason to. Did she tell you why Richard went through such trouble to make sure I got screwed over with the shop?”

She made the accusation as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. He worked his jaw a moment, considering. “If you are implying any sort of … _unethical_ conduct on Richard’s part—forgive me, but you simply must be mistaken. I _know_ him to be a good man. A man of _principles_ , who would never willfully inflict cruelty upon anyone. I have seldom known a more loyal friend.”

“Oh yes, he’s a wonderful friend. Until he’s not. My father could’ve told you a thing or two about that. I don’t suppose Richard mentioned he knew my father, when he gave you my case? That he knew _me?_ ”

Against his will, Edmund recalled Mary questioning Richard about Anna’s presence at Whitehall. Recalled the unprecedented coldness with which his friend had brushed off his daughter-in-law, recalled feeling that first flicker of unease. He shook his head as though he could dislodge the memories entirely. “There _must_ be some misunderstanding. I’m certain that if I spoke to Richard about it, he could—”

“Yeah, I’m sure he could, too. I’m sure he could tell you all sorts of things about me, about my family, about my husband, about Abe—do you know about me and Abe? Do you have the first idea what I’ve done to the Woodhulls, or what they’ve done to me? You make all these assumptions—you offer me all these excuses for my behavior, all these, these optimistic explanations, but I’m not some courageous martyr, not some, some tragic victim suffering with grace. I’m frightened. I’m scared to hell and desperate and barely holding on, and for all the bad luck I’ve had, I _know_ I’ve made bad choices, too. Please don’t try to take those away from me, even with the best intentions. My freedom to fight, to choose—that’s all I have.” Her hair was escaping from its chignon and there was a great weariness written in the slump of her shoulders and the way she leaned against the case as though it were the only thing keeping her upright. “You want to speak about my _character_ , but you barely _know_ me. So how can I let you make excuses for me? Outside of the trouble with my shop, do you know anything about me at all?”

In the cage, the red lamps had made her seem an unearthly thing, a vision composed by some artist’s hand. The lights in this room were dimmer, more flat. Their glow a pedestrian yellow-white. They dropped shadows grainily into the circles beneath her eyes and lent her neck no alluring blush. Though his first instinct was to protest, Edmund had never been one to rush into a fight—not without all possible outcomes accounted for, not without every variable considered.

The more he considered her question, the more he realized that he knew the answer as well as she did. He simply had not wanted to see.

“No. No, I don’t suppose I do.”

A smile on her lips, self-deprecating, wry. She began to nod.

“But I must tell you, I am—” Her eyes lifted; he mustered all his courage to the fore. “—interested in amending that oversight. Ah. Very interested, in fact. That is … If _you_ are interested in allowing me the chance.”

Impossible to tell whether she understood all the shades of meaning there; impossible as well to know whether he truly _wanted_ her to yet. This strange new peace between them seemed as tentative as touch of her hand and as easily lost. By the flicker of surprise in her face, he feared—hoped?—she understood enough.

A tone from the museum’s intercom brought both their heads up. From the speakers emerged a mellow voice.

“ _Attention, ladies and gentlemen. The grand opening of our new exhibit will begin in ten minutes’ time. Please join us outside the planetarium in the eastern wing. For directions, please consult your maps or follow the posted signs …_ ”

“That’s our cue, I think,” murmured Mrs. Strong. When he looked back at her, she had already turned toward the door.

So that was her answer, then: no answer at all. The hollowness of disappointment was a feeling he knew too well. As was the effort of not letting it show. “Ah. Ah yes, I—I won’t keep you any longer.”

She paused. Looked back at him in surprise. “You aren’t coming?”

When he didn’t immediately know how to respond, she gave a tentative smile and a shrug. “It doesn’t give me any sort of advantage, you know. That you don’t know me. I mean—it’s not as though I know much about _you_ , either.” Mrs. Strong smoothed nonexistent wrinkles from her skirt and pulled at the ends of her sleeves. “But … I believe I’m willing for that to change.”

Again she turned for the door, but her eyes remained on his, the way a dog looks back when it wants someone to follow. “Well, sir? My friend will kill me if I’m late.”

Perhaps, Edmund thought, lovely strangers passed by chance on the street are not forgotten so easily. Perhaps you might catch yourself looking for them again the next day, hoping against all reason that your paths will once again cross; perhaps you pass the time on the train by daydreaming about the person seated across from you, cataloging what superficial details you can gather from their appearance, what book they’re reading, their manner of dress, and extrapolating an entire life for them based more in your own prejudices and predilections than in anything concrete. And surely there could be no harm in that, so long as strangers remained strangers. But what happens when you finally work up the courage to say hello?

To that question, he had no answer—no experience to go on, no evidence to inform a theory; and he suspected that the answer was not always pleasant. But surely one would have to be both a coward and a fool not to take the chance.

Edmund rushed around Mrs. Strong to get the door for her, then held out his arm. Her eyebrows lifted. She glanced at it, then up at his face. But she took it, in the end.

Together, they walked through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to the Blaschka glass flowers at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. This chapter is more or less me dithering on a question I had all through season 2: _Why_ is Hewlett interested in Anna, initially? Because she's pretty? Because he admires her for jumping from Selah's boat? But what if he knew what she was capable of? What if he knew what she truly believed in? What would he think of her then?
> 
> Questions, questions. Well, that's why we fic.


	10. Eternity How Long

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang gives Anna relationship advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 2016, everybody! I hope your 2015 was wonderful, but if it wasn’t, at least now it’s over with. This chapter is a little plottier than the last few and contains references to material from chapters 2 and 6, so those would be good places to look if you need a refresher. I know it's been a little while.
> 
> Shout-out to Mermaid Expert for [this adorable depiction of Anna and Edmund](http://calamity-bean.tumblr.com/post/134597279852/mermaid-expert-okay-ive-been-watching-turn)—thanks again, Mermaid Expert!

After some of the things he’d seen in the line of duty—things that haunted his dreams; things that froze him mid step, sometimes, in the middle of the sidewalk for no reason at all, when suddenly it seemed as though the vivid colors of New England dimmed and the only things he could sense were frigid mud caking his cheek and the stench of blood in his nose—Ben Tallmadge liked to think he had a pretty high tolerance for pain. Physical, emotional … psychological; all, he’d realized, could be managed the same way: with walls. Build walls between your body and your mind to keep the agony from registering till you find a safe place to heal. Build walls around your heart to guard it from loss. Most importantly, build walls around your very sense of self—half to keep the world out, half to keep you in.

Yeah; Ben had a pretty good handle on pain. That said, however. That said, this evening was proving to be a special kind of uncomfortable.

“You know,” observed the woman at his side, her voice drier than sandpaper, “Anna _specifically_ promised not to abandon me to the mercies of people I barely know tonight. Specifically. She acted like I was being all unreasonable, too. Yet here we are.”

What would Caleb say if he could read Ben’s thoughts right now? Probably something along the lines of _Shit, kid, you get some alone time with a foxy gal and you wanna bitch about it? Chriiiist, ain’t your life hard._ Under normal circumstances, there should never have been reason for anyone to consider an evening spent in Abigail’s company a punishment. But after an hour or so of stilted conversation … of feeling obligated to stick together even though they wanted to see different exhibits … of constantly catching each other looking around in the desperate hope that one of their more gregarious friends would reappear … Ben suspected she had to be equally weary of him. Nature had made her shy, and experience had made him withdrawn, and on the rare occasion her quiet demeanor switched into unexpected sass, Ben didn’t have the first idea what to do with it.

Caleb would give him such shit for this. If he were there.

They stood in the hall in front of the planetarium on the edge of the massive crowd all awaiting the opening ceremony of the new exhibit. One side of Abigail’s smile had a wry twist. Was she pissed at Anna for vanishing on her, pissed at Ben for being stuck with her, or simply inviting him to join in a nice round of self-deprecating commiseration? The latter, he hoped.

“Hey, her loss. Us rejects got to stick together, right?” He tried for a winning grin. “Hell, you know how many times Brewster’s run off on me like this? I should buy the man a leash.”

Her smile curved a little more. “Kinky.”

With a startled chuckle, Ben raked a hand through his hair. “That’s not—”

“I know, hon, I know. I don’t know that a leash would do the trick, though. No offense, but he seems like the sort who might chew through it and escape anyway.”

“Maybe one of those GPS chips, then. The kind that go under the skin.”

“Oooh. Now, that I like. Too bad Anna never got one of those for Selah. Then she wouldn’t be having to hire freakin’ bounty hunters to chase him all over creation like a runaway dog.”

Ben’s hopeful spark of camaraderie flickered at the darkness in her voice. “He’s not … He’s not a bad guy, you know. Selah. People make mistakes.”

Her eyebrows raised very slowly, as though they were trying to decide whether he was serious. “…Like abandoning their wives and vanishing without a trace? I mean, I knew Selah a long time, too. I’m not saying he’s a horrible person, just … lately, at least … kinda a dick?”

“And I’m not saying he’s a saint, but, look—Selah cares more about right and wrong than almost anyone I’ve ever known. And he loved Anna. He always did. He wouldn’t have left without good reason.” Abigail’s expression was slowly shifting toward one of bemused pity. Trying his best to keep an edge out of his voice, Ben insisted, “Trust me. He was one of my best friends.”

Abigail’s tone was gentle but suggested that she found him pretty dim. “Okay, but, like … Doesn’t mean he’s not a dick.”

Where the _hell_ was Caleb when Ben needed him.

“TALLBOY!”

Apparently, tackling Ben from behind.

Ben narrowly avoided toppling into Abigail as Caleb blithely used him for balance, the lapels of his jacket wrenching back over his shoulders as Caleb held onto the back of it. Still holding on, Caleb leaned precariously around Ben’s side.

“Jesus, been lookin’ all over the place for ya, asshole! Checkin’ under tables, liftin’ up ladies’ skirts, ect cetera.” He really looked like he might’ve, too. His jacket was as wrinkled as Ben’s now must’ve been, and he was breathing hard, as though he’d been running. But his grin was bright. He looked so carefree that it almost soured the little twist of relief Ben always felt at the sight of him. Yeah, Ben had walls, but Caleb was a wrecking ball and always had been. “Miss me?”

“You wish.”

“Awww, ya sap. You _did_.” The strain around his shoulders finally eased as Caleb let go. He wedged himself into the space between Ben and Abigail, then looked around. “Wait. The hell’s Annie?”

All disagreements aside, the glance that Ben traded with Abigail found them united in concern. “Last we knew, chasing after _you_.”

Abigail groaned into her hands. “Oh, I knew it. She left. Used him as a diversion and made a run for it.”

“Nah, she didn’t do a runner. At least, not before … Heh. You know, it’s a fuckin’ great story. And I’m gonna tell the shit out of it later, but short version is, our sweet and tenderhearted Anna _might_ want to murder me right now.” He held up thumb and forefinger about a centimeter apart. “Just a bit.”

“What have you done.”

“Nothin’! Christ, I was _helpful_. I _helped_ her. Not my fault she don’t know how to say thanks.” Helpfully, Caleb brushed out the wrinkles he’d inflicted on Ben’s jacket. “You sure she ain’t around? If this is some kinda ambush, I’ll—”

“Um,” said Abigail, frowning at something beyond Ben’s shoulder.

“Caleb. Explain to me how, exactly, you _helped_.”

“Eh … in a tough, but loving fashion?”

“ _Um_ ,” Abigail repeated more loudly. When they looked at her, she pointed behind them. Her eyebrows were nearly touching her tignon. “Found her.”

They turned. While Caleb wobbled on tiptoe, Ben peered over the heads of the crowd till his gaze landed on a flash of red. Even at a distance and amidst so many other faces, he’d have known Anna anywhere, just by her shape and the way she walked: head high, back straight, covering ground quickly with long, purposeful sides.

And, at the moment, arm in arm with a man Ben had never before seen in his life.

“…Does Anna have a secret boyfriend?” Ben asked. He squinted to see better over the crowd, but yes, that was definitely Anna, and yes, that was definitely an unknown male. A male whose gaze never left Anna’s face.

Abigail shook her head slowly. “I thought that was the point of bringing _you_?”

Ben knew trouble was afoot when Caleb, softly at first but then with increasing enthusiasm, began to laugh.

“Oh shit, that’s adorable. That’s hilarious, you guys seein’ this? What did I tell ya? I,” Caleb declared, pausing long enough in his chuckles to take out his phone, “am the _best_ at helping.”

Anna’s mystery man was slender and wore a nice suit slightly too large for him and used his hands a lot when he spoke. Anna nodded at appropriate intervals, but did not, Ben noticed, often meet his eyes for more than a moment. Her companion didn’t seem to notice. But then, he didn’t know her like Ben did, did he? Not many did. And those who did would know that Anna, though relatively levelheaded and polite, had never been one to humor fools for long.

So if she didn’t even want to look at him, why didn’t she pull away?

“What the hell is she doing?” Ben murmured, and found nothing reassuring in the way Caleb cackled at his side.

 

\---

 

 _What the hell am I doing_ , Anna asked herself yet again.

A silly question, really. The sort a little girl might ask, not a grown woman once married and twice engaged and forever cutting herself on the edges of all her broken hearts. All Anna’s nerves were alight with anticipation and guilt and dread, and she knew she had no business pretending she didn’t know the answer.

Call it what you like—call it reconciliation, call it a friendly truce, call it acquaintances casually keeping each other company and read nothing further into it than that, but all pretense of that had gone out the window the moment her hand touched his arm. Whatever this was really, Anna knew very well what anyone who saw them would think:

She was on a date.

With a man she barely knew.

A man whom, until about half an hour ago, she’d rather thought she hated. _Hate_ was a strong word, maybe. _Disliked. Had bad associations with. Would rather avoid._ And who surely should’ve had just as much reason to think ill of her, considering she hadn’t exactly gone out of her way to charm him.

A man who was currently chattering on as though they’d never been anything but friends, though his looks lingered too long to be platonic.

They were following a crowd through the corridors toward the planetarium, and all Anna’s awareness was focused on her hand where it rested in the crook of Mr. Hewlett’s arm. The fabric of his sleeve, smooth and obviously high-end; the way her knuckles brushed against his side with every few steps. The warmth of him beneath her palm. The question of why she had taken his arm in the first place. To be polite? Had he only offered, then, to be polite? Why had she bothered, when she could have left him there among those false flowers with her conscience cleared and moved on?

 _What the hell am I doing_ , Anna despaired, and only realized after several moments of silence that Hewlett seemed to be waiting for a response.

“Sorry—shit, sorry. You were saying?” He looked a tad scandalized by the curse, but soldiered on with a smile.

“Ah—nothing very important. Only that I’ve—very much been looking forward to this.”

He was doing the glancing thing again. Every few moments, movement flickered in her periphery as he stole a look at her while pretending not to. The whole idea behind offering your arm to a lady, or so Anna had thought, was that the man was supposed to guide the woman, but clearly the patriarchy hadn’t quite thought that one through: Hewlett was spending so little time watching where he was going that if Anna had followed his lead, he probably would’ve walked them both into a wall.

This didn’t seem to have crossed his mind, though, even as he nearly collided with a slow-walking guest. “The exhibit, that is. It’s to do with space, yes? Astronomy? A _particular_ interest of mine, I admit.” His tone turned extremely grave. “I warn you now not to indulge me. Given half the chance, I fear I’m certain to begin picking apart every possible discrepancy in agonizing detail—a terrible fate for us both. You mustn’t even let me start.”

Anna’s face was so confused about how to respond that she felt it sliding toward a grin. “How do you suggest I stop you?”

“Oh, you’ll think of something, I’m sure. You’ve certainly taken my breath away in the past.”

Anna’s stomach wobbled. Anticipation; guilt; dread. He kept saying things like that. She never knew how to respond.

Worse, he never seemed to know how to proceed. Either discouraged by her silence or embarrassed by his own boldness, he fell into a tense pause, then cleared his throat before launching eagerly into a new topic.

It was strange, seeing him like this. So much closer than she was used to, no distance to smooth his features or minimize the slight difference in their heights. His jaw turned out to be unexpectedly square from this angle, which didn’t quite mesh with the pointiness of his chin. None of his features quite meshed. The large eyes; the jutting nose; the flat, pushed-forward mouth … She hated to think it—God, she felt like the shallowest person in the world—but it was hard to look at him and not imagine that Mother Nature had just cobbled together some spare parts, stood back, and said, _Huh, well. That’s a face._ There was nothing precisely _wrong_ with him, but nor did he look quite like anyone else she knew.

It was fast becoming apparent that looks were not the only way in which he wasn’t quite like anyone she knew.

“Ah, behold! The majestic _Nautilus pompilius_. Were you aware that if one were to draw a Fibonacci grid upon an interior cross-section of a nautilus’s shell—ah, that is, a grid with dimensions ascending according to the Fibonacci sequence—”

Mr. Hewlett, Anna was unsurprised to be learning, was an academic sort. Mr. Hewlett was _cultured_. Mr. Hewlett had, apparently, travelled far, presumably possessed disposable income, and seemed to know a little bit about every curiosity in every display case they passed on their way—knowledge he seemed delighted to have someone to share with.

Mr. Hewlett, it was becoming terribly clear, could not have been farther removed from Anna’s small, grimy, desperate little world if he had been born on the moon.

“—the spiral pattern would intersect with the corners of the grid in such a way as to approximate the logarithmic—”

“Wouldn’t you have to kill the nautilus first?”

“—Pardon?”

They were ascending the final staircase before the planetarium, and hey, maybe there was something to this arm-in-arm thing after all, because it turned out that navigating stairs in high heels didn’t get any easier when surrounded by a crowd. She held onto him a little tighter for balance as they walked.

“You said you’d have to draw it on the inside of the shell. Could the nautilus survive being taken out? Even if it could, does that somehow make it all right to do so?” Trust Anna’s brain to drag a hypothetical scenario right down into the ugly practicalities; maybe this was why she’d always hated word problems in school. “I’m sorry, I’m sure it’s a very interesting thing, this grid, I don’t mean to say it’s not, only, the way you phrased it … It seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to just to prove a point. And more than a little cruel. People are … too blasé about imposing their will on other creatures. Other humans, too. Maybe we should leave the majestic nautilus alone.”

She glanced up to find Hewlett squinting at her as though she were a specimen in one of those glass cases. _We have nothing in common_ , she shouted telepathically, willing him to understand. _Please, pleeease get that through your skull_.

His face broke into an odd little grin instead.

“What a powerful sense of ethics you have, Mrs. Strong. And here I thought that was meant to be _my_ bailiwick. I didn’t have you pegged for such a champion of justice.”

Anna lowered her eyes. He was never going to understand at all, was he. “And I didn’t have _you_ pegged for such a science groupie.”

That earned a laugh. “Well, I daresay that’s not the nomenclature _I_ would use, either! _Groupie_ —how _undignified_.”

“Oh no, we can’t have _that_. What should we call you, then, that’s sufficiently grand? The Math Major? Biology Baron? Science Supersta—”

Her heel caught on a stair, and her voice caught as she slipped. Hewlett’s hand clapped over hers on his forearm to keep her from losing her grip as he steadied them both.

“The last, I think,” he said after a moment. “Super _star_. I like the ring of that.”

Somewhere, there was a line. Between banter and flirtation, between getting to know someone and leading them on, between being receptive to friendship and seeming receptive to something more—and Anna sensed with a distant dread that she wouldn’t know where it was till she’d crossed it. Perhaps she already had. How long was it since she’d even had to think like this? How long since those first tentative days between Abe and Selah, when suddenly, the way Selah spoke to her, looked at her, even _moved_ around her, underwent that subtle shift? Had it taken time to decide what she felt for Selah, or had she known right away? Had she known what to think?

Now, as they reached the top of the stairs, all she could think was:

 _If I’d tripped like that ten years ago, Abe would’ve mocked me for it all night_.

She was still trying to decide whether that mattered, really, when she felt her phone vibrate inside her purse.

“And you, Mrs. Strong?”

Her phone buzzed again, but Hewlett didn’t seem to hear. Her hand slipped at last from his arm when he turned to face her, but they were still standing very close. “I think myself rather transparent, and in any case, I’ve been told I talk too much. So how would you describe yourself? Who, really, is Anna Strong?”

His eyes were far too tender as he looked at her and her phone was buzzing over and over again in her purse and Anna had the awful feeling that that line was riht beneath her feet.

“…I’m gonna go find the ladies’ room,” she announced.

“…Oh. Oh, um, of course. The ceremony is about to begin, I believe, but—” His expression had flickered, but he managed to maintain his smile. “I’ll just wait here, shall I?”

She tried to put that smile out of her head as she headed somewhere she could check her phone out of sight. The immediate horror she felt upon reading the texts that awaited her helped.

 

**— HOSHIT ANNIE! LOOKIT U!!! LOOKIT U I CANT BELIEVE MINE EYES**

**— DID U SRSLY TAKE MY ADVICE??? DID U & CUFFLINKS GUY MAKE UP???**

**— Cause i have to say i am so excited**

**— For u to have one less thing to bitch about in ur soap opera of a life.**

 

 _Caleb._ That little _traitor_.

He was _here,_ he was _spying_ on her again—and Anna realized that, more likely than not, Ben and Abby were close by, too. Another text buzzed through ( **Awwww whered u go?? This was just gettin good** ), and Anna groaned. They were going to laugh her right out of Setauket when she told them what was going on.

 

\---

 

“So. Anna.” Mischief gave Ben’s lips a catlike quirk even as his eyes remained, on the surface, utterly guileless. Annoyingly, it only made him more adorable. “Does this mean you’re breaking up with me?”

“Shit, man, can you blame her, gettin’ an offer like that? I mean, look at ya. You all young and tall and fair-faced; him old and scrawny and lookin’ like a frog—” With a grand sigh, Caleb spread his hands. “Sorry, Benny boy! Ya never had a chance.”

“I’m glad you both appreciate the gravity of the situation,” Anna sighed, unable to even find the energy to sound annoyed.

“Annie. You threw coffee in the man’s face and it made him wanna make kisses all over yours. I promise ya, I _super_ appreciate everythin’ about this.”

She didn’t know which mental image made her cringe more: the coffee or the … other one. “Thanks, Caleb. You know, Caleb, I really admire the intrepid way you continue to dig your own grave tonight. If you want me to kill you that badly, then please, Caleb. _Go on_.”

“Okay, before we go any further.” Ben to the rescue, as ever. He stepped between them and frowned at each in turn, looking more dangerous than most people would ever have suspected he could be. “I am formally declaring a truce. All right? Demilitarized zone, right here. Absolutely no murdering.”

“I wouldn’t murder him _here_ , Ben, we’re in _public_. Think of the paperwork.”

“You got a funny way of showin’ gratitude, y’know that? Isn’t none of this my fault. All you were s’posed to do was sort yerself out. Stop hidin’ from him, talk it over, move on.” Caleb had a decent serious face tacked on, brows all downturned and eyes glaring … but apparently the beard had left him out of practice controlling his mouth. Now, there was nothing to hide the way it kept twitching toward a grin. “The hell made ya think any of that was s’posed to involve stealin’ the poor man’s heart?”

Oh, her friends. How she’d missed them.

There seemed no way their evening could have been anywhere near as eventful as hers, but they all looked battle-worn nonetheless. Ben’s jacket was askew and his hair flopping into his eyes; Caleb looked like a total loss; and Abby was currently staring up at the ceiling with an expression that suggested she was _very_ much done with all this nonsense and couldn’t remember why she had let herself get dragged into it in the first place. The four of them all stood crammed in the alcove of an exit stairwell, the corner shielding them from the sounds of the ceremony unfolding on the other side of the wall.

“I just think yer overreactin’, is all. So cufflinks guy’s got a thing for ya. _Maybe_. You never really know till the knickers come off. But so what if he does?” Caleb feigned a kick. “He gets too fresh, ya tell him ta back off. He don’t back off, ya kick him in the oysters! It’s foolproof stuff, Annie.”

“I’m a little disturbed to be agreeing with Caleb, but that’s not terrible advice.” Abigail looked at her with her big eyes too concerned and too full of knowing. “What’s eating you really, hon? You’ve dealt with guys like this. We both have. Is this just a ‘I thought it was a business lunch, he shows up with flowers’ type situation? Or more like me and Akinbode?”

“God no. Nothing like Akinbode. He’s not _pushy_ , he’s just … Anyway, at least you _liked_ Akinbode. Once.”

“Do you like Hewlett? At all?”

“No. Not like that.”

“Could you?”

It took a moment to find the words for what she felt. “…I don’t want to. I don’t want this sort of thing right now, not with anybody. I don’t have the energy for it—I don’t have the _time_. So why should I waste both our time finding out?”

“Well, sweetheart. I don’t know. You’re the one joining him on a stroll. Why don’t you tell me.”

Anna bit her lip as she tried to gather her thoughts. Just around the corner, she could hear someone making a speech, caught snippets of jargon as they introduced the new exhibit. She wondered whether Hewlett was already nitpicking it. Then she wondered why she cared.

At last, she pressed her hand over her eyes and gave a helpless little laugh.

“…He’s so fucking blind, Abby. We’re standing in a building full of some of the most interesting, unusual things in this city, and he keeps looking at _me_.”

Did they have any idea how long had it been since anyone had _looked_ at her.

Abe, yes. Abe still looked. Looked at her with Mary at his side like he was having buyer’s remorse and asking himself why he shouldn’t just get both. She wasn’t entirely certain, yet, _why_ Hewlett would look at her, but at least it wasn’t that.

All Abigail said was “Ah” … which Anna feared meant she understood entirely. The advent of actual _feelings_ into the conversation seemed to have squicked Caleb a bit, judging by the vague cringe on his face and the fact that he’d held his tongue for more than ten seconds. Ben was utterly silent. His gaze had wandered, as it sometimes did, to a distant place where Anna couldn’t follow, his eyes shadowed and his dark brows pulled together in thought.

A rattle of applause around the corner. Anna’s head jerked toward the sound; the ceremony must be wrapping up. “He said he’d wait—if I’m going to go back, I have to go now.”

“Fuck it. Don’t.” Both girls glanced at Caleb, who shrugged. “What? Yer clearly gearin’ up for a whole new clusterfuck here, I say you cut your losses right now.”

“I think Anna’s looking to let him down a little more gently.” With a sigh, Abby smoothed the folds of her tignon and gave a grand shrug. “You’re just gonna have to treat it like a bad first date, I think. Be polite, be friendly, but not too real. Mention Selah a lot, if you can. Maybe even tell him about Abe—talking about other men tends to send a message. And if he asks if he can see you again, tell him no. If he has a problem with that—”

Caleb finished for her. “Oysters.”

In their mouths, it sounded as simple as that.

But as Anna made her way back through the crowd, she knew that nothing ever was. She was nearly there when a warm hand caught hers and Ben’s voice whispered in her ear. “Can I offer an alternate perspective.”

The crowd flowed around them, the chatter washed over them, but Ben was a fixed point amid it all. Anna stood against him with his fingers loose around her wrist and his head bowed so that she could hear him speak. “If you want to do like Abigail said, I understand. That’s probably the right way. The most decent way. But.” She strained to make out his words. “There’s opportunity here, if you’re willing to look.

“I don’t know why Selah left. I don’t know why he did it so suddenly or wouldn’t tell you where he’d gone, and I keep trying to reconcile that with the man I knew, but the truth is, I just don’t know. But I know this much. When you find Selah … _if_ you find Selah … whatever trouble drove him away in the first place is going to come dragging back on his heels. And who’ll be in your corner then? Those Rangers you hired—Akinbode and his hounds?” His fingers were light on her wrist and she wondered if he could feel her pulse quickening beneath the skin. “I’ve worked with a lot of paramilitary over the years. If they’re like any of the contractors I’ve known before, you can _not_ make the mistake of thinking that they’re your friends. They will get their fee, in coin or in blood, and if you can’t pay it, they’ll find someone who will. Best case scenario, you find Selah and get a simple divorce—if there is such a thing. Worst case, his problems become yours. In either case, you need to start thinking about your allies. An ally in the legal system … An ally in a position of authority, no less … could be worth more than most.”

“…You want me to use him. Hewlett.” The words sounded hollow in her mouth.

“I don’t _want_ you to do anything. I’m merely pointing out that you could.”

“Could … what. _Merely_ string him along? _Merely_ make him think I want him when all I’m really after is that sweet juridical expertise? _Merely_ sleep my way into the law’s good graces, wring whatever assistance I can out of him—then kick him out of bed the instant the ink on my divorce is dry?”

“I doubt you’d have to go that far, but if you felt the payoff would be worth the price—”

Anna jerked her wrist away. “What the _hell_ , Ben. I’d almost expect this from Caleb—I’d definitely expect it from Abe—but _you?_ Since when are you so mercenary?”

“Since I _had to be._  You think war’s pretty? You think we always get to do what’s _decent?_ Do you honestly think I’m proud of everything I’ve done?” His gaze was intense and his voice hushed, as though he truly wanted her to understand but already suspected that she couldn’t. “I lie. I cheat. I set traps, I disobey orders, I interrogate, I _kill_ , I _watch my friends die,_ not because I believe that _any_ of those things is right but because I believe in the _cause_. And no matter what the philosophers like to say, sometimes the ends are so important that you can’t afford to waste time agonizing about the means. Didn’t you believe that once? Back in your protest days? Or were you just another bored student playing at revolution like it was a game?”

Smoke and sirens and the ring of shattering glass. Abigail’s hand like iron in hers and Abe’s fingers slipping away. Abe’s voice, chanting with hers in unison as they marched through the streets with their signs and their ideals, their voices united, their steps united, their purposes united and their hearts, she had truly believed, united; the glare of the sirens flashing blue and red upon the sweat on Abe’s neck, Abe’s breath on her throat, Abe’s hand on her hip, Abe’s hair dragging over her face with the scent of fire and sex and _him_ , the stench of lapsang seeping irreversibly into her pores and Selah’s face so young as blood dried in the well of his cupid’s-bow lips. There was a time when justice had been a fire in her blood burning hot with anger and love, and all Anna had to show for how tightly she had clung to it were the burns on her hands and heart.

An ember remained. It felt heavy as coal inside her as she whispered, “It was _never_ a game. But somewhere, there has to be a line.”

Most of the guests had made it inside the planetarium by now. The few who remained took little notice of her and Ben, filtering around them as though they weren’t even there. Ben’s hair fell over his face as he bent his head. It ruffled with his breath when he sighed.

“I know. I just wanted to make sure you knew all your options upfront.” When he pushed back his hair, she saw with relief that some of the darkness had ebbed from his eyes. “Sorry I made you go after Caleb, earlier. I should’ve at least gone with. You probably could’ve avoided this entirely if I’d been there to stop him.”

“No, it’s all right. You wouldn’t have wanted to be there. Lots of loud noises. You know—fireworks-type noises.” As ever, Ben’s face betrayed nothing, but she knew by his nod that he understood.

“Whatever you do … Stay strong. Or, you know, don’t, if you’d rather go back to Smith.”

“And give up my tea puns? Heaven _forbid_.”

They grinned at each other—mournfully, but they grinned—and Anna let her forehead drop, just for a moment, to rest against his chest. When she lifted her face, her gaze flicked beyond the side of Ben’s arm and landed, unerringly, on Hewlett, standing just where she had left him, his hands in his pockets and his gaze on her.

Either the distance obscured his expression, or he had none. She looked back with face equally blank and refused to guilty for Ben’s hand on her wrist or her head on his chest. Not even for Selah would she have felt guilty showing affection to a friend.

His expression didn’t flicker as she approached, didn’t flicker when the first thing she said to him—“You didn’t have to wait”—came out so much flatter than the apology she’d intended it to be. His mouth was utterly level, his features almost unnervingly smooth.

“…I was under the impression,” he said after a moment, “that you wanted me to.” The cant of his head and the tight press of his smile made him seem very far away. “Did you enjoy the ladies’ room?”

Anna’s eyes narrowed, and her mouth gave a little quirk. “…Immensely. Did you enjoy the ceremony?”

“I did. A pity you missed it. Apparently they’ve devised an innovative approach to portraying the inner workings of black holes. Everyone’s to take a seat and watch.”

No stammering. No bizarre turns of phrase. Polite and cool and almost—just around the edges—a little cruel. She had heard him like this, she realized, but not since Whitehall; perhaps not even since the very first time they met, when he had wanted nothing more than to escape from her shop as quickly as possible. She had become so used to his constant enthusiasm that that difference disturbed her more than anything else that evening.

She looked toward the planetarium, all the guests obediently crowding inside the auditorium as the screen on the domed ceiling glittered faintly with simulated starlight. No doubt her friends were among them. Still talking about her, probably, speculating, watching to see what she’d do. With Ben’s words still ringing in her ears, Anna thought at last, _Fuck this_.

“No. I don’t think I will.”

His coolness cracked a bit as he blinked at her. “Pardon?”

“I’ve spent too much time tonight being shepherded around and told where to go and what to do and who to do it with. Doesn’t it drive you crazy?” A quick glance around to make sure no one was paying attention, then she turned toward an unassuming door set into the far wall. “Let _them_ take a seat and watch.”

The sound of footsteps behind her came as no surprise. “What in heaven’s name do you—we’re going to miss the show!”

“No. We’re just getting a better view.”

The door code still worked. She propped it open on her hip as she looked back at him. “If you want to go back, Mr. Hewlett, go back. I won’t be offended if you stay. I won’t be bothered if you come with. But it’s your choice. Don’t base it on mine.”

Left to its own devices, the door would take probably three, four seconds to shut. Enough time for her to reach the switchback staircase that lay beyond and start on the first flight. The hinges creaked as the door moved.

Not quite three seconds later, the creaking paused. Just long enough for someone to slip through before Anna heard the gentle click of the door shutting all the way.

“This is a restricted area. Have you any notion the sort of _trouble_ we could find ourselves in if we’re caught?” The way Hewlett’s voice echoed in the narrow space really highlighted that charming note of alarm. “We’ll be barred!”

He sounded so cross when he was worried that she had to laugh. A slight stumble on the stairs, the railing saving her this time, made her pause. “Like you’ve ever been barred from anywhere,” she called down breezily as she took off one shoe, then the other. The concrete steps were rough on her feet, but the freedom felt incredible. “I bet you never skipped school, never came home a minute later than curfew—I bet you never broke a rule in your life!”

Hewlett appeared around the corner of the first switchback, staring up at her in utter exasperation and defeat. “Why on earth would I _want_ to?”

“Why would you _not?”_

They kept it up as he followed her at a jog, his shoes slapping on the concrete and hers dangling from one hand.

“ _Rules,_ Mrs. Strong— _rules_ are integral—to the very fabric of society. They give us order! Structure! A framework by which we can objectively measure right and wrong!”

“Just because something’s a rule doesn’t make it _right!_ What if the rule’s unethical? Unjust? You can’t just keep your head down and obey for obedience’s sake! It would be morally reprehensible _not_ to fight!” At the top of the stairs, she paused in front of a second door and waited with a breathless laugh. “You’re in America now, Mr. Hewlett. Problems with authority are the national sport.”

Then she opened the door and stepped through into a glimmering dark.

Metal mesh cool on her feet. The railing only an arm’s length away, easily found, and she held to it as her eyes adjusted to the dense gloom.

“Where in God’s name have you taken me, Mrs. Strong.”

“Shh.” The only ways she could sense him were the warmth of his body at her back and the scent of his cologne, so subtle she hadn’t noticed before. It made her think of the tea-stained wood in her shop and of old books with pages yellowed by the sun, the paper irresistibly soft. “The curator’s a customer of mine,” she whispered. “She brought me up here before. There’s this sort of catwalk around the dome—best seats in the house, she said.”

“Oh yes, if one enjoys being in peril of falling to one’s death, I suppose, or being barred for life from a respected house of learning, or—”

And then the darkness transformed.

“ _Behold,_ ” she whispered teasingly, but for once, his attention was anywhere but her.

Anna rarely gave much thought to the sky. An extraordinary sunset, violent with bursts of fuchsia and red: that could capture her eye, bring her to the window of her shop to watch the color seep from the sky and drip golden down the glass in front of her. But by night, the sky above Setauket became a worn-out, pedestrian thing, not quite dark enough to call black and with few distinguishable stars. The light and the dark all muddled together into gray.

The sky that surrounded them now may have been fake—nothing more than a globe of curved screens transmitting electrical signals into visual data—but it was the sort of lie anyone would be eager to believe. A glittering sprawl of diamond light and colors purer than any that could be seen from earth spilling out dusty nebulae and bright-clustered constellations against a starstruck background of rich and fathomless black. To those seated below, it must still have been a magnificent view of space. But where she and Hewlett stood, cradled by starlight above and below and on every side, Anna could almost imagine that they’d drifted out of the atmosphere entirely and truly were floating amidst the stars.

With the draw of a few pins, Anna released her hair from its hopeless bun. She set her shoes down on the walkway and rolled her neck, sighing as some of the ache eased out of her spine. She probably looked a fright, but to hell with it. Hewlett wanted to know who she was? Let him see her, then: a weary, unladylike, inveterately contrary mess. A spiral galaxy was winding off along the screen curving over her head, and she wondered idly whether it could make a more ethical substitute for the nautilus. When she turned to ask, however, the words died on her lips.

Nebulae were shining on Hewlett’s upturned face, and even among all those constellations and distant suns, his smile was the most brilliant thing in the room.

 _Oh,_ Anna thought. Nothing more.

It was several moments before he noticed her stare. His smile wavered as he looked at her, but his eyes remained alight. “Mrs. Strong? Is something … What, have I something on my face?”

“…No. No, it’s. It’s nothing at all.” There was an odd pressure in her chest. Not the flutter of anticipation, not the twist of guilt, not the heaviness of dread; just a pressure sweet and sad and full. She swallowed before continuing softly, “You really love this sort of thing, don’t you.”

Embarrassment swept over his face, and she regretted saying it at once. Forcing a laugh, he averted his eyes to the floor. “ _Ha_ —ah, yes, well. Well, I did warn you. A bit of a groupie _indeed,_ I’m sorry to say.”

“Don’t be sorry, just—why?” She looked out across the dome. The images were beginning to change, showing different parts of space, different structures: planets, asteroids, black holes. But between them, always the same glittering lights. “Why stars?”

“… _Oh_ … Manifold reasons, I suppose.” He rested his forearms on the railing and leaned down, watching the constellations shift. Several moments passed before he continued. “It’s—not always been easy, you know. Coming here, to America. So far from everything I knew.

“I’ve had a passion for astronomy since I was a boy. I suppose I always enjoyed looking _away_ —always found myself drawn to the distant, the esoteric, the unknown, bored by the practicalities of day-to-day. But then you grow up, you know, and so many of the things you took for granted slip away, and the distant loses some of its appeal. I fear I’ve felt the truth of that keenly, here in Setauket.

“ _One_ thing, however,” he wagged a finger, and his voice began to regain its usual snap, “ _one_ constant remains to me. For distant and esoteric though they might be, the stars, you see, do not change. The heavens are serene and eternal; oh, the view shifts with the seasons, to be sure, and from hemisphere to hemisphere, but it’s all one great wheel in the end, and it always turns back around. No matter upon which side of the Atlantic I find myself, all I need do is look at the stars … and I’m at home.”

There seemed to no way to respond to that. A joke would be too flippant; a bland acknowledgment, unsatisfying; and Anna wasn’t sure she was ready to match the level of intimacy in his words. At last, she nodded at the view before them and whispered, “I bet you know every star on this screen.”

“In a betting mood tonight, aren’t we, Mrs. Strong?”

“Am I wrong?”

A secretive smile said she was not.

“Tell me about them,” she said, joining him by the rail; and, after a moment of silence as he gathered his thoughts, he did.

 

\---

 

It rained later that night. Much later; long after the show ended, long after Hewlett ran out of stars, long after they trotted, giggling, down the stairs and back into the uncompromising brightness of the museum hall before Anna thought to consider whether it would change anything, that stark and unmerciful light, or when this feeling in her chest would fade. An emotion could be as ephemeral as a moment, and a sudden change of scenery could kill either one. How long would this one last beyond the privacy of the catwalk and the nebulae’s unearthly light?

Long enough, apparently, to carry them all the way to the lobby with much meandering along the way. The night was winding down quickly and noticeably; many guests, she could tell, had already left. That must have been on Hewlett’s mind as well when he said, “It scarcely feels real, does it. This evening. I keep dreading I’ll wake up tomorrow and find it all a dream.” He smoothed his lapel with a chuckle. “And to think I nearly stayed home.”

“I would’ve given anything to,” confessed Anna. She’d left her shoes off and intended to stay that way until someone yelled at her for it. Maybe even after they did. Relishing the perfect smoothness of the marble floor as she spun a slow circle, she continued, “My friends had to drag me out here, practically. They’ll never forgive me for ditching them halfway through.”

“…Yes. Yes, I … imagine your gentleman friend has been missing you very much.”

The tone of his voice as much as his words made her still and look his way. “My…?”

“Ah—your young man. The blond. I assumed—that is, forgive me; I didn’t mean to pry. But I couldn’t help but notice that the two of you appeared quite close.”

The magic was fading; he had that wary distance again, the carefully composed expression of someone prepared for pain. It twisted the pressure in her chest as she looked down with a wry smile. “Ben … is very much a gentleman, yes. And always my friend. But not _my_ gentleman friend.”

“…Ah.”

“No one is,” she added, and refused to regret adding it. Hewlett gave her an assessing look.

“…I do hope I’ll be seeing you around, Mrs. Strong.”

“…The shop’s reopening soon.” Anna hesitated; Abby’s advice was warring with Ben’s within her, and she wasn’t entirely sure she was following either one. “New management, and it’s to serve _coffee_ now, tragically, but I’ll still be there. I believe you know the way.”

“ _Hm._ As I recall, you did, in fact, bar me last time I stopped by. Am I to understand that verdict’s been reversed?”

“Such a rule follower. Making absolutely certain you’re allowed to do something first. _Yes,_ Mr. Hewlett. I’ll take down the wanted posters.”

“Edmund. Please.”

“…Edmund.” She considered the name, the elegant and upright sound of it. It suited him. So did the gentle way he chuckled when she said, “Call ahead so I can put the kettle on for you, hm?”

And later, much later that night, rain dripped down her bedroom window while Anna curled her hand against the pillow and watched the raindrops cut curves through the street lamp's glow. It should have lulled her to sleep, but her thoughts wouldn’t quiet. Ben’s words kept turning over in her mind.

She wasn’t using Hewlett. Not really. She’d made no promises, asked no favors, set no expectations of reward. If she spent time with him, that was her own business. If she still had no idea where that line was or whether she’d ever be willing to cross it, that was her problem. Why should she have to justify it to anybody?

What if he _offered_ favors, though. What if she _needed_ help. Would she still be so noble, then, once she was further down the path?

More than anything, she kept thinking of that moment on the catwalk when she’d first seen his face.

It hadn’t been the lighting, though she’d considered that. The starlight might have been kinder on his angles than the flat glare of fluorescents, but she wasn’t that shallow. No; it had been that smile. A smile unlike any of his previous. Utterly unguarded, utterly unrestrained, the beaming, blissful, wondrous smile of a child marveling as a magic trick unfolded before his eyes. Suddenly, his jaw had suited his chin; suddenly, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes became lines of laughter, not age or stress. It was a smile so incredibly genuine that she’d felt almost like a voyeur seeing it, and in that moment, she had realized—having seen him so unguarded once, she could imagine how someone might be willing to do anything to make him smile like that again.

 _What the hell am I doing_ , thought Anna, and longed for the emptiness of sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I am SO GLAD TO BE DONE WITH THE MUSEUM ARC, oh my goodness that took longer than expected. Looking back at the overall structure of these last few chapters, there’s a lot I’m not happy with and a lot that I wish I could reorganize or change. The pacing is super wonky, and some beats should definitely have fallen elsewhere. BUT, such things are bound to happen when you’re working a chapter at a time! All I can do is shrug and say how excited I am to finally be able to move on to the next sequence in this story.
> 
> Show quotes: "The heavens are serene and eternal," which is either taken directly from S2E4 if I've remembered it correctly or paraphrased from that episode if I haven't. Additionally, this chapter shares a title with S1E4.


	11. Blooming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amidst manifold changes, things begin to take shape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, glad to post twice this month (if just barely)! This chapter is so long I seriously considered splitting it. But I think it works better as one thematic unit, and anyway, most of the good stuff is toward the end. Are these chapters too long? Are they kinda a pain to read all at once? I have a lot of trouble working shorter, but I really appreciate y'all dealing with my long-windedness!
> 
> Upside about this chapter is that I got to use some dialogue I wrote all the way back in JULY, which felt nice. Downside is that I am so ... SO nervous about the end. Oh well, here goes!

“Unacceptable. Entirely unacceptable. Forgive me, are we endeavoring to run a business here, or merely a social club for those who wish to swan in at their leisure and accomplish no actual _work?”_

Mary would’ve hoped that she and Mr. Hewlett had reached a point, by now, where she’d endured enough tipsy renditions of “Rule, Britannia!” at Richard’s dinner parties that she’d no longer be able to find Hewlett intimidating in any situation. Mary would’ve been wrong. When it came to business, at least, he was apparently still capable of making her feel like a schoolgirl caught cutting class. With Mr. Baker on her left and Mr. Eastin on her right, she stood before Hewlett’s desk with her hands folded in her lap and studied her (new, very cute) shoes.

Hewlett braced the fingers of one hand against his temple and grimaced at the report in his other hand. The paper was liberally adorned with red pen.

“Errors of this sort … Errors of this sort suggest a grave lack of discipline. That you could not only have _missed_ them, but allowed them to reach a _client_ … Well. Needless to say, I am vastly disappointed in you all. This is our credibility on the line here, and you appear content to cut it loose.” The bleeding report dropped from his hand to his desk. “Well? I’m eager for someone to prove me wrong.”

 _Someone_ really involved only one candidate. Baker was too busy looking as though he was trying to melt into the floor; Eastin had mutiny in his eyes. _God help me_ , Mary thought, and straightened her spine. Humble, soft-spoken, and precise—all the qualities Hewlett liked best. “We’re so sorry, Mr. Hewlett. You’re right. It should never have happened. But I can assure you we’ll take care of it, no matter how late we have to stay every night.” That earned her a resigned nod (from Baker) and (from Eastin) a glare that promised revenge. “It won’t happen again.”

Tellings-off from Hewlett were always special. Richard usually just yelled a bit and acted like such an ass that Mary could justify feeling indignant about the whole thing even when she’d legitimately been at fault. Hewlett, on the other hand—Hewlett had this devastating way of looking at you as though he’d _believed_ in you, truly _believed_ , and now your stupidity was making his brain leak out his ears. By the width of his frown, Mary feared they might still be in for another round of guilt-tripping on the subject of how He Knew They Could Do Better … But then his gaze flicked to the cups lining the edge of his desk.

Most were his usual coffee mugs, nondescript and white. A couple, however, were disposable. To-go cups bearing the name of a café Mary had never visited but that was becoming quite familiar.

At last, Hewlett sighed.

“Yes, well. No need to punish yourself so harshly. Just see to it quickly and take better care in the future. So long as that’s understood, I see no need to trouble Richard with the matter, hm?”

“How the _hell’d_ we get off so light? I thought we were in the shit for sure!” Baker whispered later, as he and Mary were taking their lunch in the break room. Mary poked at her salad, her forehead furrowed in thought. “Ol’ Hewlett sure picked a day to decide to be human.”

“Mr. Hewlett is always _human,_ ” murmured Mary. Her fork pushed some kale around. “He’s even _nice_ when you give him the chance. You just never interact with him except when there’s been a disaster of some sort.”

“No—no, Mary, it’s more than that. He’s been in too good a mood lately, too good a mood for weeks. Human—sure. Nice—maybe to you. But _lenient?_ Mr. Law, Order, Authority himself?” Baker glanced over his shoulder. From their table, Mary could just glimpse Hewlett chastising a couple of interns in the distance. They appeared suitably cowed. “Lenient’s _unnatural_. Something’s going on with him for sure.”

Mary stopped messing with her kale and gave Baker a pitying look. “Isn’t it obvious?”

It had all begun with those silly disposable cups.

The first one had appeared, oh … she wasn’t sure. A few weeks ago, maybe. Maybe before, but she’d hardly been paying attention. So Mr. Hewlett had finally decided to rise above the horrible office coffee and start getting his caffeine fix elsewhere. No big deal.

But at about the same time, the man who had once been such a reliable creature of habit had begun acting in a way that, even by his standards, was … odd.

There was the leniency, yes. _Human_ Hewlett might be, and a good human in the end, but a bit of a martinet, too. Lately, however, some days found his mood so sunny he veritably glowed.

Then there was the daydreaming during meetings…

An unusual eagerness to leave work precisely on time, some days, when before he’d never seemed to have anything to rush home to…

And Mary had known with absolute certainty that something was afoot the day she saw him arrive with one of those steaming to-go cups in one hand. As she’d watched, he’d taken one sip. Paused with a full-body shudder of obvious disgust. And dumped the entire drink down the break room sink.

Only to arrive the next morning with a fresh cup and do _the exact same thing_.

Was this what living with Abe had done to her? Reduced her to a wary and watchful creature incapable of trusting even a disposable coffee cup? Or perhaps paranoia was merely the price of wisdom, and wisdom a pretty name for all the cruel lessons of growing up. Mary could not afford to trust change. Change always meant trouble for _someone_ , and rationally or not, Mary couldn’t help but fear what all this might mean for _her_. More likely than not, whatever sort of beverage-based midlife crisis Hewlett was going through would have no bearing on Mary’s life whatsoever, but her nerves refused to let the matter go.

She’d felt like an idiot, to be honest, when she did finally figure it out. How blind she was—or just, perhaps, how quick to forget. Had it truly been so long since she’d felt that way that she couldn’t even recognize what was right in front of her face?

She’d been sitting at her desk one day, spacing out over a case briefing as she thought about taking Thomas to the zoo that weekend, when a flicker of motion drew her eye. Hewlett, leaving for lunch. Through the glass front of the office, she’d watched him step out into the hall and call an elevator.

As he waited for the lift, he’d peered closely at his reflection in the shiny gold of the elevator doors. He’d straightened his tie. Brushed at his lapel as though picking off lint, though the thought of impeccable Mr. Hewlett actually having lint on his clothing was doubtful. Last of all, he’d smoothed imaginary flyaways in his neat hair.

And just like that, Mary had finally understood. The preening, the distractedness, the sunny moods—of course.

Bless his heart. Mr. Hewlett was in love.

 

\---

 

“Am I meant to do something with this, or have you mistaken me for a countertop, Mr. De Young?” Anna drawled, seconds after her new boss shoved a huge box of hazelnut cappuccino K-Cups into her arms.

“Tomorrow’s special. Serve it in the nice mugs and sell for $5 a cup—you can stretch each pod to make two.” _Don’t let the customers see_ , was left implied. In what little time the smug bastard actually spent in the café, he played the obsequious host for the customers, always cozying up to the ones that looked like money and pretending at grandeur of his own, but behind the scenes, he wouldn’t have valued any one of them more than the pennies he could save by cutting corners. She shook her head as she stashed the instant coffee in the stockroom, listening to his voice carry in from the front.

Instant coffee. In _her_ shop. Hazelnut or not, she never thought she’d see the day.

Cappuccinos. Lattes. Mocha this and mocha that. French vanilla frappes, plain black drip, Americano after Americano and more shots of espresso than she could stand, and Anna could _feel_ herself going mad with the monotony of it and the way her shop always smelled exactly the same now: that same bitter coffee stench. Today would have been a rooibos day, once. A rooibos day, and the redbush would have filled the air with a maltiness entirely distinct from the spice of chai or sharp, tannic Assam. But a new menu and a new owner attracted new clientele, and with so many of her old regulars yet to return, every day now smelled the same.

What would Selah think, if he could see her now? As the days warmed, Anna traded her coat for a cardigan, watched her skin begin to freckle in the sun. Spring had crept into Setauket with all the subtle inevitability of a flower opening to the sun, and as with the budding trees in the park and the crocuses along the sidewalks, Anna had scarcely noticed till it was already in full bloom. What would Selah think if he knew what had become of the business he had built? If he could see how heavily she peeled herself from bed each morning, sitting quietly on the edge with her back to the conspicuous emptiness of his side for minutes at a time before dragging herself off to another day of being treated like shit in the shop she used to own? Would he still have left her, if he’d known the damage it would do?

She found herself thinking of Selah so often these days. Just maudlin, she supposed. The product of losing too many things in such a short span of time. Hugging Ben good-bye without knowing when she could see him next; suffering a stubbly Caleb kiss with the knowledge that, Caleb being Caleb, she might return to that shitty North End apartment of his in a week and find he’d already disappeared again, run off who knows where for who knows how long. Helping Abigail pack for Philadelphia, then holding her close and wishing her luck when all Anna truly wanted to do was beg her not to go.

She supposed it was habit that kept bringing her back to the shop, even now. The comfort of the familiar; a refusal to give up on the business she’d fought so hard to keep. A business that was, after all, her last remaining connection to the husband she’d loved, once—still loved; perhaps always would.

And now summer was peeking over the horizon, and Anna watched its approach with a surreal sense of timelessness, as though suspended between a past she couldn’t wash away and a future that would never unfold until she did. The things she cut herself free of now, she sensed, would be things she would never get back. But how could she give them up without even knowing what she stood to gain?

Anna’s life held only one constant now. And it had begun, as most significant things did, with something so seemingly insignificant and so small: his choice of drink.

“I cannot believe you’re ordering that. I cannot believe it’s my first day back on the job and you’re ordering _that_.”

“Mrs. Strong. It will be a dark day, I’m sure, and one which will forever cast a shadow upon your memory, but I believe the time is fast approaching when you shall have to accept that I simply do not like _tea_.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. Everyone likes tea. You just haven’t tried the right one.”

“And supposing this fabled ‘right one’ does not exist?”

“Then you could have ordered something other than _coffee_ , at least.”

The shop’s grand reopening. As the day wore on and Anna learned ever newer and more interesting ways to burn herself with the espresso machine, she’d begun to think he wasn’t going to come. They hadn’t spoken since the museum. Perhaps he’d … changed his mind. But then, during the afternoon quiet spell between lunch and five o’clock, the bell had jangled on the door, and there he was. Hesitating on the threshold with sunlight painting the line of his jaw.

If the way he smiled when their eyes met had made her stress begin to melt in a way she hadn’t entirely anticipated … Well. It had just been nice, in the midst of such an awful day, to see a friendly face.

But then, after the _Hellos_ , after his _It’s so good to see you_ , after her considered—but ultimately unspoken— _I’m glad you came_ … the ridiculous man had had the nerve to order a _latte_.

Anna scowled as she turned away to fire up the dreaded espresso machine. Before she turned back, she pulled a plastic knife from the cutlery tray beside the baked goods and held it with the point resting over her heart.

“Go on, then,” she ordered as he blinked at her: “Twist the knife. Or should I find you some salt for my wounds?”

Edmund Hewlett made the most incredible face whenever he was teased. It was the gravest, snootiest, most ineffably English glare of exaggerated disapproval, and Anna wanted to frame it on her living room wall. Very much above it all, he sniffed, “I realize your colonial sensibilities are somewhat less _delicate_ than my own, but surely we can find a way to resolve our differences without resorting to violence. Think of the mess.”

“Coward. I’ll let you live this once.” Mostly because it took all her concentration to fix his drink. Her hands felt twice as large as usual as she clumsily—and very, very carefully—pulled the espresso. “Honestly though, will you listen to yourself? You don’t like _tea_. That’s like saying you don’t like food, it’s so vague. You sound like a teenager who thinks there’s no such thing as good beer because all your friends ever buy is Natty Light.”

“I don’t care for beer, either,” Hewlett supplied helpfully, and Anna tossed her hands up in frustration.

“ _Wine,_ then. You’re a college girl who thinks she doesn’t like red wine because your boyfriend always buys cabernet and it’s like, way too dry for you, so you always get white. Meanwhile, of course, there’s merlot and shiraz and Malbec, but you never even _try_.”

The way Hewlett squinted at her implied doubts about her sanity. After a moment, he shook his head. “…Circumnavigating the issue of my hypothetical boyfriend, who, I must say, seems to me to have rather good taste, the fact remains that the range of flavors which can, chemically speaking, be produced by the tea plant—or by grapes, or by wheat or barley—is predetermined and finite. This all but guarantees that most teas contain certain fundamental flavor compounds which I simply do not enjoy. You really mustn’t take that as some sort of personal statement against yourself.”

The foam on his latte was a solid, even white. She wasn’t good enough yet to do anything fancy with the milk—not like those baristas who shaped it into leaves or clovers or hearts. Years becoming an expert at her work, and now she was reduced to a fumbling novice. Her nose missed the scent of chai as it simmered in milk, filling the shop with pepper and cardamom and cloves; her hands missed the satisfaction of packing the yerba so evenly and inserting the straw so precisely that the leaves didn’t shift even a hair. As Anna brought his latte around, an idea took form in her mind.

“What _can_ you give me, then?” she asked carefully. “As a personal statement?”

Hewlett frowned at that, considering … but something must have shown in her face. His eyes narrowed, and with a knowing smile, he wagged his finger at her. “I do believe you’ve already something in mind,” he guessed, and Anna couldn’t help but grin.

“The chance to prove you wrong.”

 

\---

 

And it had been that simple. To start with, at least.

A few times a week, the bell above the door would jingle merrily, and she’d look up to see a familiar silhouette.

He’d saunter in with all his studied nonchalance, as though he’d simply happened to be passing by, and politely wait till she was free.

She’d make him a tea of her choosing. Something she thought he might like, if she was feeling charitable, or something she _knew_ he’d hate if she just wanted to see how he’d react. Then he’d whine like the most tragic martyr in history before each tentative sip.

And, increasingly, they’d talk.

She’d been so nervous, the first time. Chamomile—chamomile was her first attempt. Very basic; not, in fact, a tea at all, and perhaps mild enough in its flavor to ease him into the idea. She’d been less concerned with whether he liked it, to be honest, and more with the anxiety of seeing him again. What to say, how to act, how _he_ would act, whether he would look at her, still, in that way that made her feel like the only woman he’d ever seen, and whether he would act on that glimmer of interest she was sure she’d seen. The shop had none of the museum’s magic. She waited for him in jeans and an old sweater with her hair falling out of its braid and wondered, as she studied herself in the mirrors behind the counter, whether it had all been nothing more than her dress and the setting and the electrifying surreality of that starlit night. It had been such a strange night, after all. So far removed from the petty hardships of daily life. But here, now—perhaps, seeing her like this again, he would remember how unexceptional she really was and soon lose interest in coming by at all. Either that, or perhaps he would show too _much_ interest, as men sometimes did, and she’d learn to dread his visits: always on her guard against the next come-on, the next unsolicited glance, the moment when he would ask too much.

She couldn’t decide which would be worse.

He hated the chamomile. Said it tasted “like clippings from the garden.” He came in during his lunch and stayed for maybe fifteen minutes, chatting about nothing very important. He didn’t remark on the stain on her sweater. He didn’t look at her the way Abe looked at her when Mary wasn’t watching. He didn’t flirt.

But he came back the day after. And again two days later, and again, and soon it was more often six days a week than three, and he’d spend his entire lunch hour there, sometimes, if business was slow.

Jasmine green tea went the way of chamomile, as did sencha and orange spice.

Irish breakfast was a disaster. Too strong, at first, so she’d added more milk. Still too bitter, so he’d insisted upon what she _told_ him was an ungodly amount of sugar, and then it had become too sweet, and then they’d gotten to bickering about _Well, that’s how my mum always makes it_ and _Your mum is not an authority here, Edmund, I don’t care how British she is_ and if there hadn’t been so many damn witnesses in the shop, she’d have thrown the kettle at his stupid froggy face.

In comparison, Darjeeling was a goddamn hit. When he tasted it, his eyebrows raised, and he made the strangest little sound: _Hm!_

It made her think of an inquisitive bird.

 _Which next?_ she wondered daily. Which was Hewlett more likely to enjoy? Which would he truly hate? Which would make his nose crinkle up in aristocratic disgust; which had the best chance of wringing a smile out of him, or a scowl? Or an eyebrow raise or a wince or a _hm_ —

He had a thousand expressions to choose from; she couldn’t pick a favorite. Each was more ridiculous than the last, and she wanted to make a gallery of them all.

And as the days piled up and they fell into a rhythm, it became so lovely—such a comfort amidst so much change—to have something familiar to look forward to. The shop would fill with soft and herbal scents, dampening the coffee scent, and for that half hour or so out of the day, she could pretend that this was still her life, still her choice, still her shop.

The shop had no magic. It had loud customers and a boorish owner and equipment that threatened to scald. Some days, Hewlett could eke out more than an hour to visit, some days mere minutes. He listened to her bitch about customers, and she listened to him moan about paperwork; he painted a picture of a childhood spent riding horses and barricaded away behind books, and she entrusted him, piece by piece, with fragments of her own memories, carefully avoiding the sharp edges around Selah and Mary and Abe. She let him veer away on tangents about subjects she barely understood and didn’t even have the heart to tease. The cadence of his voice became familiar to the last note, and whenever business was slow, she found herself glancing again and again toward the door.

Just small moments, yes. Mundane. But mundane was good. Mundane and simple and slow.

Only once did things nearly go too far.

It was evening. She’d grown to like that best, when he came in the evening: just before close, when Mr. De Young had already gone home and she could kick the rest of the customers out with no apologies. They got into an argument while Hewlett was helping her clean up. Something ridiculous, she could hardly even recall—except that he’d _definitely_ been wrong. They’d argued their way through closing duties and argued their way through locking up and had still been arguing so doggedly at that point that he’d accidentally been dragged along when she automatically drifted toward her usual route, and that was how they’d argued all the way to Anna’s apartment, where they’d stopped beneath the streetlamp in front of the building and argued some more.

Eventually, of course, they’d paused, though only to catch their breath. With the thrill of a good challenge in her veins, Anna had looked up with a breathless grin, ready to go on. But then she’d seen how close they were standing. Then she’d seen the way he was looking at her, with his eyes all crinkled at the corners and his smile so soft. And as that smile began to slip and his eyes slid down her face, Anna’s nerves had spiked, because she’d realized—

He wanted to kiss her.

She was sure of it.

Edmund Hewlett was going to kiss her, right there beneath that light. With her hair all sweaty and a coffee stain on her sleeve.

And she … had no idea how she’d react if he did.

So before she could give herself a chance to think, Anna had taken a single step back.

She’d wished him a good night. Told him once more, just for good measure, that he was wrong. And retreated inside. Where she’d realized only then that they’d been so caught up in each other that evening, right from the moment he stepped into the shop, that she hadn’t even thought to make him a drink.

Anna had leaned her back against the door with a twist in her belly and an ache in her heart, thinking, _If Selah could see me now._

 

\---

 

Fixing those pesky reports was going to take ages. As the sun began to slink behind the buildings on the skyline, Mary caved to necessity and called Aberdeen, letting her know not to hold dinner. Then she bundled an assortment of corrected files into her arms and went to go see Hewlett.

He was squinting intently at his laptop when she entered his office, the image on the screen reflecting in the reading glasses perched on his nose. His pen tapped against the desk with a restlessness she’d rarely seen in him.

“Too much caffeine today, Mr. Hewlett?”

“ _Hah_. Well, perhaps.” Her gaze had fallen at once to the cups on the edge of his desk—two coffee mugs, two to-go—but _his_ flicked to the notepad resting near his elbow. She scarcely had time to notice there was something drawn on the top page before he moved his laptop on top of it, leaving the computer angled to one side. “Quite a lot to be, ah. Done. After all. Isn’t there. Thank you.”

As he took the files and swiveled his chair to place them in the appropriate cabinet, Mary happened to lean forward—just a bit. Not intrusively at all. Just enough to get a peek at his laptop screen. When she realized what she was looking at, it became a challenge to keep a straight face.

“That’s a very nice restaurant. Abe’s brother took me there when we were dating, I think.”

She had to give it to him: Hewlett recovered with admirable speed. He only froze for a moment before swiveling back around. “…Ah, yes! Someone mentioned it in, ah, in passing, you see, and I thought I might … expand my culinary horizons.” He snapped the lid on his laptop shut even though she’d already seen the menu on the screen.

“I’m sure you’ll love it—it’s beautiful inside. Though maybe a bit overwhelming for someone dining alone.”

“Oh, I’m—not bothered by that. You … liked it, though?” The poor man was peering up at her with traces of unmistakable anxiety in his face. “That is—in your opinion as a, ah, as a young female, you enjoyed your dining experience? It’s only, I’ve been debating between, well, a _few_ restaurants in the area—and I shouldn’t like to waste my time on one that’s not—”

“Mr. Hewlett,” Mary interrupted, as gently as she knew how. He blinked at her over the rims of his glasses, and Mary smiled tightly. “Just ask her what she likes.”

A pause. Then Hewlett’s eyes shut, and he chuckled to himself. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he leaned back in his chair. “I suppose I’m utterly transparent, aren’t I.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say utterly, no. Maybe on the order of frosted glass.” She took a moment to close the door before perching on the edge of the chair in front of his desk. Despite the rough start to the day, she couldn’t help but smile for him. After all, they were, he’d said, friends. “Though why you’d go and act as though it’s some sort of _secret_ …”

“Oh no, I didn’t intend—it’s just, there’s no secret to _keep_. It’s nothing … _official_ , you see _._ Not as yet. I’ve … not wanted to rush.” Spreading his hands, he sighed. “I had _hoped_ to effect that conversion very soon, but…”

“Can’t decide on a place?”

“A dearth of data, I’m afraid. I’ve no notion what she eats. In truth, I’ve nothing to go on but the assumption that she _does_ , in fact, _eat_ , which has been less helpful in selecting a venue than I’d hoped.” Who knew the ever unflappable Mr. Hewlett could look so thoroughly lost. Maybe this memory could be some comfort during his next telling-off. He suddenly moved to open his laptop again. “I’ve made a spreadsheet of options to compare, but—”

“Mr. Hewlett, don’t you think—”

Mary bit her tongue. She selected her words carefully before continuing.

“The place you were looking at before. If the others are anything like that … It’s a bit much, don’t you think. For a first date.”

Hewlett blinked at her. His lips pursed, and he clasped his hands primly atop the desk the same way he did whenever a client started to get hostile. “…I hardly see the harm in wishing to make an impression.”

“I suppose that depends upon the impression you make.”

“But I intend this to be a _statement_ , Mary. Something grand. Something significant enough to compensate for…” He hesitated, then vaguely waved a hand. “…Surely Abraham has done as much for you.”

Abe. Hewlett seldom mentioned him so directly, these days. Not since that evening in the rain long ago, when she’d gone and told him too much—the last day she’d seen or spoken to Anna Strong. Sometimes Mary caught herself wondering what had become of that woman, but even thinking of her was like reaching into a flame, and inevitably, Mary flinched away.

She supposed not mentioning Abe was Hewlett’s way of being delicate about the whole thing. Mary answered as honestly as she could bear. “Not on our first date.”

He frowned, seeming deep in thought. “Start with flowers, maybe,” Mary suggested as she stood, and supposed she’d have to content herself with his nod. As she smoothed her pencil skirt, she glanced again at the cups lined up around the edge of the desk. “May I get some of these out of your way?”

“My dear girl, that is hardly your job—I’m sure an intern—”

“I insist.” She gathered them all up, mugs and to-go cups alike. Hewlett gave her half a smile.

“Thank you, Mary. For everything.”

Later, at her desk, Mary took the corrugated cardboard label she’d peeled from one disposable cup and smoothed it carefully flat. De Young Café. The name rang some distant bell; she must’ve seen it while walking around town. If she hunted it down now, she was sure, she would find whatever woman had done this to her friend. Not that she _would_. Good for Mr. Hewlett, after all. It was none of Mary’s concern.

And yet. And yet, for all that he had nearly twenty years on her, there was a naïveté to Hewlett that put her uneasily in mind of her own naïveté of not so long ago. Hewlett had never been in love, he’d said. How could someone who’d never been in love possibly be prepared for all the ways it could wound.

Mary considered the label a moment longer, then slipped it into the trashcan below her desk. For now, at least, there was no cause to worry. Certainly no cause to act. But she’d keep the name of the café in mind … Just in case.

 

\---

 

He wasn’t coming tonight. Anna had waited half an hour beyond close, but with all her chores done, she was running out of excuses to linger. Not to mention that she was being _silly,_ she admonished herself as she donned her jacket and turned off the main light. He had his life; she had hers. He was under no obligation to come.

She was just about to turn out the stockroom light and head out the back door when she heard a knocking at the glass. Slowly, Anna grinned.

“Sorry, we’re closed!” she called, and could just imagine the look on his face.

“For pity’s sake, Anna,” came the retort, muffled through the glass. He sounded weary and vexed, and that made her smile even wider. She fretted at the loose strands of her hair as she strode toward the front. “It is positively frigid out here! Your employer shall be very put out, I should think, if his customers lose their appetite to the sight of my frozen—”

Anna pulled open the door, and suddenly, nothing stood between them but a few inches of air. He was right: with the sun set, it was quite cold outside. It had brought a flush to his cheeks and the tips of his ears and made his eyes seem glitteringly alert. Anna hardly felt the chill. For a moment, it seemed that Hewlett, too, was at a loss for words.

Anna braced her hand on the doorjamb. “I’d given up on you,” she admitted at last, and he had the grace to look contrite.

“Ah—yes. I _was_ afraid it would be too late, but … then I saw your light.” When his head inclined toward the lit stockroom behind her, Anna couldn’t help but think how small a distance there was, really, between her face and his. A few inches shorter than Selah; a few inches taller than Abe. She wouldn’t even have to stand on her toes. “I suppose it could have kept till morning, but I, ah—”

His breath clouded in the air as he inhaled deeply, then let it out. “I wanted to give you this.”

One hand dug into his pocket; Anna felt a horrible rush of dread. Into her palm, Hewlett pressed…

…a round bundle of woven tea leaves, about the size of a golf ball but much lighter. The texture was papery against her skin.

Anna blinked.

“I had to interrogate half of Chinatown to find it,” Hewlett was explaining excitedly. The more clear it became how proud he was of himself, the more guilty and confused Anna felt. “We’ve been in such a terrible crush at the office, I couldn’t get away, and then there I am wandering from shop to shop like an utter fool, didn’t have the first notion where to look, and I got _lost_ , Anna, lost in the most alarming part of the neighborhood, and I—”

“Edmund…” Anna hesitated, but there was nothing for it. “What _is_ it?”

She’d feared it would break his heart, that. Instead, his face lit up. It soon turned sly.

“Good _heavens_. I can’t believe you don’t know. My, my, Mrs. Strong—how the tables have turned.”

“Smug does _not_ become you,” she scolded, but stepped aside to let him into the shop. His chin lifted and his smile turned haughtier still. “What are you on about?”

“Only that principle so widely acknowledged: that turnabout is, in fact, fair play. Tonight, my dear—” He draped his suit jacket over the back of a chair, his skin looking as pale as his crisp white shirt in the gloom. “ _Tonight_ , _I_ shall make tea for _you_.”

For all that she suspected Hewlett fancied himself a scientist, Anna thought there was at least as much of the showman in him. No mere scientist would be so prone to pretend seriousness or sudden, unsolicited recitations of poets no one had ever heard of. That side came to the forefront now as he strode around the shop with remarkable energy, flinging open cupboards, putting the kettle on to boil, and further narrating his Chinatown adventure as he went. Anna curled her legs beneath her in the wooden chair and watched in disquiet. He knew where everything was, she realized. Even with only the light of the stockroom to see by, he went straight for the kettle, didn’t lose any time hunting for cups. The last time anyone but Anna herself had made tea in this shop, it had been Selah striding around in his silent but intent way, his face a mask she’d never quite managed to peel.

Hewlett arranged his equipment with all the care she’d come to expect. In the middle of the round table precisely, concentric with the table’s curves: the large glass bowl she used for mixing spices. On either side: two cups. Hewlett placed the ball of dried leaves in the center of the bowl; it had to be rotated once or twice to his satisfaction. At last, he fetched the boiling kettle and stood at attention before her, his chin tilted up and his free hand folded behind the small of his back.

“Well, my dear? Have you guessed it yet?”

She raised her eyebrows, doing her best to seem unimpressed. “Revenge. You’ve mashed some grass clippings together to pass off as tea, and this is your revenge for the Irish breakfast.”

“ _Hm_. On the surface, I grant you, its appearance is hardly prepossessing. One might be forgiven for harboring doubts.” With care, he began to pour. “But if you have the patience to look, you shall receive wonders which, I think … shall quite take your breath away.”

At first, nothing happened.

The water steamed; the ball tumbled around as he poured, releasing one or two bubbles of air, and floated for a moment before beginning to sink. Anna looked to Hewlett as he sat down in the chair opposite, but he merely inclined his head.

“Observe.”

Then it began. Slowly, at first, as most worthwhile things did. Relaxed by the warmth of the water, the woven leaves loosened, and the ball began to fall apart—

No. To bloom.

It was like watching all of spring condensed to mere moments. The tea leaves parted, furling out in long strands. At their center, a hint of red. Petals pushed out and took form. In but a few minutes, what had looked like nothing more than a shriveled little wad of dried grass utterly transformed, blossoming into a scarlet chrysanthemum the size of Anna’s palm.

It was like nothing she could have imagined. The light filtering through its petals stained the water a brilliant pink.

Anna’s throat felt tight. She lifted her eyes from the flower and found Hewlett watching her with a nervous smile. What did he see in her face, she wondered, to make his eyes turn so tender?

“What are you thinking of?” he whispered, and Anna knew she had no answer he’d want to hear. Still, she couldn’t bear to lie.

“Selah.”

Never had she seen a smile vanish so quickly. Hewlett’s expression slid to something numb.

“…Ah.”

“He was always such a mystery, even when we were together. People … Most people, they found him so serious. They thought he was moody, gloomy, didn’t know how to have fun. But he just … He just never gave them time to get know him. I don’t think he was interested, really, in letting people know him.” She knew she should stop talking, but as she watched the petals drift and bleed their color through the tea, she found her heart too full of words. “He barely even let _me_ know him, and I … I’ve been thinking so much about that lately. About Selah, and about the way things … the way people … change.”

None of Hewlett’s childhood lessons in etiquette seemed to have prepared him for this. He leaned back in his chair as though actual physical distance might somehow help, but she could tell how unsettled he was by the way he started to twist his ring.

“Well. He, ah. Your Selah, he sounds like a very…” He couldn’t even look at her as he spoke, and then his voice trailed off entirely, leaving him staring at the tabletop. After a moment, his eyes shut tight. “…You must miss him very much.”

“…Sometimes.” Anna’s voice was so faint, even she hardly knew what it would say till she heard it. “Some days, I think I’d strangle him if I saw him again. Others I feel I’d do anything to go back to the way things were.”

“…The man deserted you, Anna.”

“I haven’t forgotten, thanks. But there was so much more to us than that.”

“But he _deserted_ you,” Hewlett insisted, as though she didn’t damn well know. The way he leaned forward with his hands braced on the table now, so adamant, pained her, his grimace flickering between humiliation and sheer frustration as though the issue was as black and white as one of his cases in court, and all would be well if only he could make her _understand_. “The _one_ person he’d sworn _never_ to desert, for richer or poorer, in sickness or health, and you—how can you _possibly_ be so eager to forgive?”

“How can _you_ act like it should be so _easy_ to just stop loving someone?” she whispered desperately. Not angry; just sad. “Just like that?”

For a moment, Hewlett was absolutely silent. His jaw worked from side to side. “…Love.” The word held a depth of gravel and weight. He gave the emptiest chuckle she’d ever heard. “…Yes. Yes, of course.”

The legs of his chair scraped against the floor as he stood. Anna followed suit at once, regaining her feet as he bundled his jacket over one arm and turned toward the door. “Forgive me, I … didn’t mean to presume—”

“ _Edmund,_ sit _down_. And let me finish. Please.”

He didn’t sit, but he did halt. With his body turned half toward the door and half toward her, he looked fragile in a way she hadn’t imagined he could, the uneven light making all the lines of his face stand out as starkly as cracks in a porcelain cup. The guardedness of his eyes was too much. She turned her gaze to the tea instead, resting her hip against the table as she watched the chrysanthemum drift and spin.

“We had a _life,_ Selah and I. We had a vision of our future together. Or I thought we did, at least. And I—I’ve kept telling myself, I suppose, how everything would be fixed if only he’d come back. If only he’d never left. I don’t even know _why_ he left. I hired these people to look for him, these Rangers, but I don’t even know if he’s _alive_ —and it’s the not knowing that…” Anna bit her lip; her eyes squeezed very tight. Grief was a weight in her chest and a pressure constantly in the back of her mind. “I miss what we had. I’ll never regret having had it. But I think I’ve known for—for a very long time, now … that it’s gone. I just wasn’t ready to let go.”

Hewlett’s expression was half in shadow and matched none of those already in her gallery. He looked utterly weary … but for the faintest glimmer of hope. “…And now?”

Anna looked at the chrysanthemum. Her fingertips rested on the rim of the bowl, tracing the edge as light glimmered on the water in jewels of sunset pink.

Blinking back tears, she smiled.

“Thank you. It’s perfect. It’s the most magical thing I’ve ever seen.” When she looked back at him, her lips were trembling and her throat was catching, but none of that mattered, because he was standing there framed by the doorway in that way she found herself searching for every day. How could she ever have thought him froggish. How could she ever have thought him cruel. “Edmund?”

He took a breath and waited, preparing himself for the worst.

“I’m so glad to know you. I’m so glad you gave me the chance.”

By the way his expression softened and his smile flickered, so tentatively but so truly, back to life, she was sure he understood.

Not much later, Edmund stood at her back in the crisp cold of the evening as Anna locked the front door of the shop. She could feel wind on the nape of her neck, and she could feel him—not touching. Not close enough to be rude. Just close enough that all she’d have to do was turn around and take a single step.

Neither of them spoke. There didn’t seem much to say. Carrying on as though nothing had happened would only have cheapened the weight of everything they’d both laid bare, and Anna’s heart felt too full to bear hearing or saying anymore. She slipped the keys into her pocket and shifted her feet, beginning to turn.

Over her shoulder, she could see him watching her. It wasn’t a decision. It just happened. As Anna’s feet completed their turn, bringing them face to face, she took the single step that brought her to him.

They didn’t touch. The lapels of their jackets barely brushed together, and the toes of her boots just fit into the space between his feet. With her lips so near his shoulder, she could feel his cheek alongside her own, could lower her eyelids and see his arms hanging straight at his sides even as Anna’s were crossed over her chest, hands resting on the opposite shoulders as though to cage her pounding heart. She wondered if he’d be able to feel it in his chest, her heartbeat, if she leaned in that final inch. For too long, they stood too close and too still and said nothing at all.

His cheek brushed against her temple as he turned his face toward hers. Fingertips rested lightly against her waist. “There’s something I’ve wanted to ask,” he murmured, breath stirring her hair, and Anna stepped back.

“It’s getting late.” Her voice was still hoarse. She didn’t trust herself to lift her face up to his, even as, with another step, his fingertips dropped from her side. “T-tomorrow. Sometime around lunch. You’ll come by?”

When she lifted her eyes, the flush was back in his cheeks. She managed a smile just for him. “Come by tomorrow, and ask me then.”

 

\---

 

Tomorrow—today—Anna had never been in such fine spirits serving coffee.

“How can I help you, sir?” she chirped to the next in line. A man in a green jacket, he was surveying the menu unblinkingly and took a moment to respond.

“I’ve just arrived from a long journey,” he remarked at last, gazing vaguely around. “I’m in need of a drink.”

Anna’s eyebrows lifted.

“Okay, sir. We can make that happen. But we’re going to have to be a little more specific than that.”

They got the weirdest customers in these days, but even that couldn’t put a dent in Anna’s mood. She whipped him up an Americano, then took advantage of the lull to slip away into the stockroom, just for a moment.

The chrysanthemum had almost entirely dried out. In rested in a teacup on a shelf where no one would bother it, its tea-leaf sepals crinkling and curling as they dried once more. The color was fading, the flower not as objectively beautiful, perhaps, as it had been in water, but she wouldn’t have had it any other way. With gentle hands, she lifted the cup to her nose and breathed in that papery scent, stomach tingling as she did.

It had taken most of a sleepless night, but finally, she understood. Finally, she had words for all the things she’d never been able to articulate; finally, she looked into the eyes of all the things she’d refused to see. She had it all planned out.

He would come in, and she’d take her lunch then, no matter what Mr. De Young said, because this was not a conversation for prying eyes. She would take Edmund by the hand and lead him into the stockroom, shutting them away where no one but the flower would see.

And she’d tell him all the things she’d not had the words to say last night. She’d tell him about Selah, about Mary, about Abe. She’d tell him how fucking angry she was and how fucking sad, and how she’d been angry and sad most of her life, because he deserved to know that, Edmund did, before he found out the hard way. She’d tell him that some part of her would always love Selah, just as some part of her would always love Abe—but that was _all right_ , because the versions of them that she’d loved were gone, long gone, just as the version of herself who’d loved them was only a misguided remnant clinging to her soul, and she was so sick of torturing herself with thoughts of what could have been. She would tell him the truth: that even if Selah walked through that door right now with the most brilliant explanation in the world and the solution to all her troubles in the palm of his hand, she would never want him back. Not after she’d worked so hard to finally see the promise of what might lie ahead.

And if Edmund still wanted to kiss her even after all that, she would lean into that final inch between their bodies and rest her heart against his.

 _“Anna! More mugs!”_ shouted Mr. De Young from the front, and Anna sighed. She let the flower just brush against her lips before replacing it on the shelf.

It was a relief when De Young left not much later. Most of the customers drifted out as well, and the shop fell into the midmorning lull. Eventually, only the man in the jacket remained, sitting alone at a table in the corner long after he’d finished his Americano. Not so unusual if he’d been reading or typing, sure, but this guy seemed content simply to lean back and stare into space. Anna divided her time between flicking glances at him and at the door.

Once they were the only two in the shop, Anna approached. “Can I get you anything else, sir?” she asked, and the man glanced at her with eyes of palest blue.

His gaze drifted around the room. “This is a very nice shop,” he observed mildly, and Anna’s mouth quirked, nonplussed.

“…Thank you. I’m certain the owner would be pleased to hear it.”

“The ginger with the wagging tongue? A pig. I’ve no interest in pleasing him. The compliment was for _you_ , Mrs. Strong.”

It was usually quite warm in the shop. It didn’t feel that way now.

Anna stood with her shoulders very stiff as she surveyed the man in front of her. On the surface, he looked like anyone else. His posture was relaxed, his eyes innocent and expectant as he awaited her response, his voice calm, if oddly delicate. He was even a bit handsome, what with those long legs and auburn curls. The only thing off was the perpetual lack of expression in his face—as though he were observing the world from behind a pane of glass and vaguely bemused by what he saw.

“…Have we met, sir?” she ventured, and was glad for the table between them when those long legs unfolded and he stood.

“In a manner of speaking. We have a mutual acquaintance.” He smoothed the sides of his jacket, hunter green, and held out a hand. “Akinbode’s told me so much about you, I feel we’re friends already.”

Akinbode. Anna began to feel sick as she understood.

In barely a whisper, she said:

“Selah. You’re here about Selah.”

The Ranger looked ever so slightly miffed that she’d ignored his handshake, but lowered his hand with grace. “John Simcoe … at your service, madam. Akinbode referred your husband’s contract to me. And I must say, Mrs. Strong, it’s proved an interesting hunt indeed.”

She couldn’t breathe. She pressed a hand against her stomach and wanted to scream that this wasn’t supposed to happen now—this wasn’t in the _plan_. The bell above the door was supposed to jingle and she was supposed to take his hand and she was supposed to put everything from this part of her life behind her. Just like that.

The Rangers, evidently, had not been informed of her plan.

Anna’s hands came to rest on the back of the nearest chair. “Tell me. Please.” Her voice was hard. Her fingers clenched on the wood. “Tell me what you’ve found.”

Simcoe canted his head. That patronizing smile could as easily have indicated amusement as sympathy as he nodded toward her chair. “Perhaps you should be seated.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, it’s everybody’s favorite girly-voiced Ranger dude! Aren’t we all … so glad … to see him. ._. _Don't hate me._
> 
> A thousand quotes from the show in this one; hopefully I'm not missing any here:
> 
> S1E1: "Law. Order. Authority." (Naturally.)  
> S2E4: “And if you but have the courage to look, you will receive marvels that will quite take your breath away.”  
> S2E2: “I was afraid it would be too late, but then I saw your light,” and, “Yes. Yes, of course. I didn’t mean to presume.”  
> S2E1: “Anna! More jugs!” (Out of all the random lines I’ve aped for this fic, I think for some reason this is the one I’m most proud of???)  
> S2E8: “Sorry, we’re closed!,” “I’ve just returned from a long journey. I’m in need of a drink,” and, “Perhaps you should be seated.”
> 
> And finally, a few examples of "blooming" or "flowering" tea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07utaifjxYo


	12. Sealed Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some questions are answered and others arise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last few chapters have been pretty fluffy, huh? Pretty cute and optimistic. That was nice. I enjoyed that. I hope you enjoyed that. Anyway, here's chapter 12.
> 
> Shout-out to tvsn's adorable Valentine's drawing of Anna and Edmund in the shop—thanks again! http://tavsancuk.tumblr.com/post/139194979970/felt-like-drawing-some-turn-for-valentines-day-i

Edmund Hewlett donned his armor.

Trousers first, then cotton shirt. High thread count, pristine white; collar pointed, shoulders cut to flatter as best they could, given their subject. Starched stiff enough to allow nary a wrinkle yet too soft to protect him from anything. He started buttoning at the sternum and worked his way down till just above the navel, where he paused. His fingertips rested against the skin of his stomach. Slender but soft; sparsely haired. And, ever since last night, twisted in knots. He would be so easy, he thought surreally, to gut. If one were so inclined. All it would take was the right opponent wielding sharp enough words.

A shake of the head to dislodge such thoughts. He picked a tie at random, happening to choose one scarlet red.

The jacket, then. Cologne. Merely a dab, never too much— _a bit much_ , Mary had cautioned, and that warning rang in his ears. He placed a dot at each wrist and pressed his wrist to the pulse point just beneath the corner of his jaw, letting his hand stay there a moment as he remembered the taut and breathless sensation of her lips lingering so near the crook of his neck that he’d been able to feel her breath on his throat. All he’d had to do—God in heaven, all he should have done—was dip his head a matter of inches, and he’d have been able to finally find those lips with his own.

Would that have been too much? And yet … could anything be too much, really, for a woman like that. One who could suffer such injustices—some of them delivered by his own hand—and still find it in her heart to give him another chance. A woman such as that deserved every scrap of admiration he could give her. Surely the far greater sin would be to understate; to let fear of rejection prevent him from daring, even at the risk of a grievous wound.

Edmund straightened his cuffs. Regarded himself in the sallow fluorescent light of his master bathroom and managed a smile at the figure he cut, even if the scarlet tie did make him look a bit like a soldier with a slit throat. Not so bad-looking a man, really. Not so bad at all. He had his charms, after all, for those persons deep enough to prefer sharp minds to strong arms, and despite her current surname, Anna … With Anna, he at least had a fighting chance. Proudly, he brushed smooth his lapel.

And then felt like rather a fool, to be honest, when he made his way to the shop early that afternoon with nerves in his belly and a smile already blooming on his face, only to find that she was—

“Gone,” he repeated, and wondered at the shape of that word in his mouth. The sound no longer seemed attached to a meaning. “Pardon, forgive me, but what precisely do you mean by _gone?”_

“I mean gone! Poof, vanished, split. Hours ago. She is supposed to work till midafternoon, but then she calls, says she needs the day off—and no sooner do I get here than she rushes out the door.” With a great shake of his head, the café’s owner shoved a finished drink at a waiting customer. They stood on opposite sides of the counter amid the early afternoon rush. “She wants the day off, well, when she gets back, you tell her she is through here. She can have all the days off she likes.”

Over the preceding weeks, they had established a passing familiarity with each other, Edmund and Martin De Young. Unavoidable, given the frequency of Edmund’s visits, but never before had he needed to exchange more than five words with the other man. Now, however, all of Anna’s ranting and vitriol was beginning to make sense. No sooner had Edmund stepped into the shop and paused, bewildered, near the door, than De Young had caught sight of him from behind the counter and, with a shake of his head and a crooked smile, called over, _She’s gone_.

“And she gave no reason?” Edmund pressed, leaning over the counter. De Young kept turning away to serve new customers, which, yes, Edmund supposed that was the courteous course of action, but _damn_ the man, could he kindly be discourteous for just _five minutes_. “No explanation before she left?”

An aggravated shake of the head without turning around. “All she did was leave that,” De Young huffed over his shoulder, and pointed to loneliest corner of the counter—and the flower that sat there with petals dry and curled. Pinned beneath the chrysanthemum: a slip of receipt paper torn jaggedly from the roll.

 

_Edmund,_

_Couldn’t stay, something’s come up. Please try not to worry. I just need a little time._

_I’m sorry._

 

Edmund read through the note twice, three times, four. As though one more look would reveal some hidden meaning in that comma splice or in the fact that she hadn’t ended with her name, the only signature that bland, antiseptic apology: _I’m sorry_.

“A ‘ _Dear John_ letter,’ I think they call that,” De Young felt the need to comment mid-espresso, and the paper crinkled between Edmund’s fingers. Setting his jaw, he placed the note facedown on counter, refusing to look at it any further.

“I am _quite_ certain, sir, I haven’t the faintest notion what you mean. She gave no indication where she might be bound?”

“How should I know? You think that woman tells me anything? Maybe you should ask her man.”

De Young had his back to Edmund, engaged in creating some sort of concoction involving ice and too much syrup. Edmund tapped his fingers rhythmically on the counter till it became clear nothing further was forthcoming. “Forgive me, did you intend to elaborate on that?” he bit out, acid edging his tone.

Seldom had he seen the shopkeeper wear any expression other than an impatient scowl or an ingratiating smirk. Now, however, De Young turned to him with an expression that could only be called pity. He set the drink aside and then tapped a thick finger on the note. “I said _Dear John_ , Mr. Hewlett, because that is what a woman really means when she says she ‘needs time.’ Especially when that time is spent leaving town with another man—say, one whose arms she is in when I arrive.”

He could think of nothing to say; could only let the idea trickle in slowly, numbly, as De Young continued. “I found them embracing when I got here. Then, together, they left. He had a bag, fully packed.” A shrug. The smile still pitying, but patronizing, too. “Is it such a surprise, with her reputation? You ask me, you are better off.”

And with that, De Young turned back to his customers without a care in the world. Early afternoon, and the café was at its busiest. How awful to be exposed like this, at the mercy of all those eyes—indifferent, indelicate eyes glancing over him and instantly sliding off as though Edmund and all the nuances of his pain were nothing more than mildly interesting scenery created only to help fill in the background of their lives. His fingertips rested on the torn edge of the note. An inch to the side, the chrysanthum. Dried now, faded and crinkling, it looked as far removed from the magic of the previous night as he felt.

He had thought it so beautiful, that flower; he had thought _her_ so beautiful, and he had thought … He had thought he understood. Circles and circles, she’d spoken in, but he had been sure that, in the end, she had meant—

His gaze fell on the tea flower once more. She’d kept it. Why would she have kept it. Why would she have left it for him to find now if last night hadn’t meant _something_ to her, too.

“Mr. De Young.”

Midway through making a drink, Mr. De Young flicked him a glance over his shoulder.

“You’ve worked with Anna for some time now, I believe?”

“Yes, yes, more time than I’d like.”

“And in that time, have you ever known her to be particularly delicate about speaking her mind?”

A furrowed brow from De Young; a frown.

“On my second meeting with Anna Strong, she threw my own coffee in my face. If she wished to be rid of me now—” Edmund folded the note into precise, ruthless fourths. “—she would simply have _said_.”

He tucked the note into a pocket and took the chrysanthemum carefully in one hand. He’d just taken his first steps toward the door when De Young called for him to wait.

Grumbling to himself, the shopkeeper rummaged around beneath the counter for a moment before emerging with a grand sigh on his lips and a small card in his hand. “You don’t believe me? Here. I found this after they left. You want answers, you ask him yourself.”

The business card was cream stock edged in dark green and emblazoned with nothing more than a name and telephone number. Neither meant a thing to him, but they rooted an unease in him nonetheless—an unease that only grew with every passing moment as he left the shop and paused in the bright sun outside, letting pedestrians flow around him as he tried to assemble all this information into something that made sense.

Out of it all, only one fact was clear: something was _wrong_. Something was terribly, terribly wrong, he could taste it as surely as he should have tasted her mouth when he had the chance, and Edmund stood rooted to the spot with the unshakeable feeling that somewhere, there was a battle he was meant to be fighting, if only his comrades hadn’t left him behind.

And it _was_ a battle, wasn’t it: the sweetest and the cruelest, waged with no strategies, no rules of engagement, no stalemates, no justice and no mercy. He reflected bitterly on the sting of old scars as he slumped in his chair in Whitehall, too distracted by the papery flower sitting atop his file cabinet to get any work done. Through the glass wall, he could see Mary Woodhull in her office, talking on her mobile. Her free hand was tangled in her hair, her face reddening as her shoulders grew more and more tense.

Edmund watched wearily from across the office floor. Give him the courtroom, for heaven’s sake. Give him wars waged in fine print and the delicate nuances of legalese; give him lawyers flinging sections and articles and precedents at one another like spears, politely taking turns with their volleys, the entire conflict overseen by a judge’s impartial eyes. Give him battles where the wounds were glancing and the combatants could shake hands, afterwards, and ask after mutual colleagues and compliment each other’s professionalism before the bench.

But _this_ … This blind, chaotic struggle, where the victories so often proved pyrrhic and even the smallest wound could easily fester and kill … He watched as Mary hissed something into her phone before smacking it down onto her desk and slumping back in her chair, drawing in a deep breath and pushing back her hair. Her brows were drawn low, her mouth set in that way Edmund had come to understand as meaning young Abraham had just done something even more reckless than usual.

Which would be the greater tragedy, he wondered: To fall on the battlefield, or never to dare fight at all?

He studied the chrysanthemum with an impassive frown. Then he reached for his mobile and that green-edged card.

A man answered after the second ring.

_“Hello. How did you get this number?”_

“‘John G. Simcoe,’ I presume?” Edmund read from the business card, voice cool and eyebrows raised. The man’s light tenor was a surprise, though not as much as the discovery of a fellow Englishman at this of all times. A weighty pause followed.

_“...You have me at a disadvantage, I’m afraid. I didn’t catch your name.”_

“Edmund Hewlett. With the law offices of Whitehall of Setauket.” He kept his tone crisp, professional. Business as usual. “I represent the legal interests of Mrs. Anna Strong. Forgive me, but I’ve been trying to reach her and it seems she’s without her phone—would you kindly put her on?”

The response was immediate. _“I’m sorry, who?”_

“...You know very well who.”

 _“I really am sorry, sir, but I believe you have the wrong number. You seem to have mistaken me for the sort of man who discusses clients with complete strangers over the phone. How odd.”_ Edmund scowled at the smile he was sure he could hear in the other man’s voice. _“Now, if you don’t mind—”_

“ _Wait_. Wait, please.” Resting his elbow on the desk, he leaned into his hand. _Client_ , the man had said, and Edmund struggled to remember what Anna had said last night, about hiring someone—about her husband. It was worth another gamble. “As Mrs. Strong’s counsel, I am extremely concerned about the ramifications of her husband’s recovery on her interests. It is imperative that the three of us discuss the matter further in order to arrive at the agreement that will be most beneficial for both you and her.”

The lengthiest pause yet. He dared to hope. If he could only hear her voice—if this man would only put her on the phone for a moment, long enough for Edmund to know that she was safe and well—if he could only have that, he would be content. At last, Simcoe remarked, _“I must say, I admire your devotion to your clients. How interesting.”_

Edmund’s jaw worked from side to side. “...If there’s anything I can do for Mrs. Strong...”

 _“Sorry. I’m afraid I really must go.”_ Edmund opened his mouth, but before he could speak: _“I’ll be in touch!”_

And the line went dead.

Leaving Edmund staring at his phone with a sinking heart and a doubt gnawing at his mind. For even if De Young was wrong, and this was not about Simcoe at all, but about _Selah_ … She could simply have told Edmund as much. Surely she’d known that. Surely she’d known that he could _help_. And since she had not, perhaps the simple truth was that he had misunderstood, and she’d never had any intention of letting Edmund into her life.

 

\---

 

The press of the window against her brow was so smooth, so cool, that Anna could almost imagine it the brush of a lover’s hand over her forehead instead of a half inch of grimy fiberglass closing her off from the world. The world: an ungraspable thing. Blurs of color streaking by, telephone poles no more than a flicker, there one moment and gone, there and gone there and gone there and gone and she wondered, as she watched them with red and swollen eyes, why they couldn’t just _stay_. Just for a moment. Everything moved so fast, these days. Everything slipped away from her so fast.

A trick of perspective: a farmhouse in the distance, framed white against a forest of green. The trees and telephone poles flashed by, but the farmhouse scarcely seemed to move. She was thinking how unfair that was when a snapping sound stirred her, and she lifted her head in time to see her travelling companion tuck his phone into the pocket of his olive leather jacket.

“Who was that,” she managed, voice dull.

“Someone very nearly as nosy as you, Mrs. Strong. Nothing to be concerned about.” From the seat opposite her own, Simcoe looked up at her with those round eyes and a smile that made her expect to see hooks stretching his mouth from the corners.

A lot of Simcoe’s expressions, she was noticing, had that artificial quality to them—as though he hadn’t practiced them much. Affectations and eccentricities were one thing. Affectations and eccentricities—like a tendency to recite obscure poetry, for example, or gush about scientific minutiae no normal person could understand—she could learn to like; could learn to like, perhaps, very, very much. But John Simcoe’s manner was not that of a man cast in a different mold from his peers.

It was of a creature that had happened upon the skin of a man in the woods and decided to wear it like an ill-fitting coat.

Anna curled her legs beneath her in the hard plastic seat of the train with the New Jersey pinelands rattling by, Simcoe reclining cross-legged in the seat across from her, and her hand resting limply in her lap. Beneath her hand lay her thigh. Against her thigh leaned her purse. Inside her purse, perpetually exposed by the bag’s broken zipper, lay the little canister of mace she carried everywhere and had never had occasion to use.

She turned her face to the window again. Her energy seemed to drain out into each streak of color whirring by. “How far away is it now.”

“Not far. No need to worry yourself. It’s not like he’s going anywhere.” Anna closed her eyes against the sting.

“...That was unnecessary.”

“Merely stating a fact. You needn’t be in such a rush.”

“I want it done with. I have things waiting for me at home.”

“As do I. Do you think I normally do this for clients? Or take contracts at such a discounted rate? You haven’t even given me your thanks.”

Anna pursed her lips. “...You’re right. How rude of me. _Thank you,_ sir.”

Simcoe bowed his head, the picture of humility, of grace.

“Any friend of Akinbode’s is a friend of mine.”

Anna wasn’t certain she and Akinbode could ever have been called _friends_ , even when things between him and Abigail were at their best. It was difficult to be friends with someone who always seemed to have so much anger simmering just beneath his skin—or perhaps it was merely that his anger had run contrary in so many ways to _hers_. She rebelled against power so instinctively she doubted she’d ever be comfortable wielding it. Yet Akinbode had so willingly claimed for himself the power of a predator over prey.

 _Hunters and fishermen,_ she thought, remembering a cold Boston night and waves lapping against the pier, and she wished that Caleb were there with his cunning and the easy way his wisecracks would puncture Simcoe’s skin. She wished for Ben and his sharp eyes, wished he were there to see to the heart of the matter and lay it out plainly. She wished for Abigail’s strong arms and sensible head. More than anything, she wished she were not there at all, but could be standing instead amidst shelves full of coffee and tea with the smooth fabric of a collared shirt beneath her hands, the cotton thin enough that she could feel his heartbeat on her palms as she said those words she’d thought she was so ready for.

“Whatever awaits you in Setauket will still be there when you get back,” Simcoe was saying absently, typing something into his phone. Anna hoped he was right. The rattling of the train began to lessen, and he raised his eyebrows at the window as the blur of telephone poles began to resolve. “See? Here we are already!”

Simcoe stood to retrieve his bag from the rack overhead, surprising her when he politely handed down her own well-worn bag first before dropping his satchel on the seat. One item remained in the rack: a backpack bearing a logo in the shape of a stylized blue crown. Lightly, Simcoe remarked, “A few relaxing hours on the train, a scenic journey … Was that really such a hardship?”

She forced a tight smile in response to his own. “...Well. I suppose there are worse places to visit than Jersey.”

“And with a new friend, no less. Speaking of which—”

Friends. Caleb, Ben, Abigail. Edmund. Three who couldn’t help her anymore, and one she couldn’t bear to drag into this mess—not now, not when she could still hear Ben’s voice ringing in her ear: _There’s opportunity here, if you’re willing to look_. Anna held her smile in place and regarded Simcoe with the thought that she would have to be a damned fool to ever consider this man a friend—much less to go _anywhere_ , New Jersey or otherwise, with him alone.

Which was why, of course, she had not.

“—your companion _does_ plan on returning, does he not? He’s been on that call quite some time.”

The door to the dining car slammed open with a plasticky snap, and then Abe was striding down the aisle toward them with his phone in his hand and a scowl on his face. He threw himself into the seat next to Anna with all the petulance of the teenager she’d once loved.

“Trouble?” inquired Simcoe mildly, and Abe flicked him an irritated glance.

“Peachy, mate, thanks.” Only then did Abe seem to notice that the train was slowing. He rested his forearm on his knee and leaned toward the window in a way that brought him too much into Anna’s space. “Christ, we there already?”

She lowered her eyes. Unable to bear the sight of his sharp profile so close, unable to stop thinking about the way those wisps of sandy hair stuck out from beneath his gray beanie. “What did you tell her?” she murmured at the ugly plastic seat, and when Abe sighed, she could feel his breath stir her hair.

“That Caleb got his ass thrown in jail in Philly and I gotta go bail him out. She believed me, for the record—” He sank back into his seat, and Anna could breathe again. “—but you can bet I’m gonna catch hell for it at home.”

Every inch of the right side of her body buzzed with awareness of the scant few inches between her and him. She tried to ignore it and despised herself when she could not. “I didn’t—there was no one else I could call.”

“ _Hey._ Come on.” He bumped his shoulder companionably against hers, making her tense. They kept their voices low even though Simcoe, who was unblinkingly watching the sky, made a good show of disinterest. “You really think I’d make you do this alone? ‘Sides, I mean … It’s been too long. Haven’t seen you since…”

_Since I lost the shop? Since the last time we kissed? Since the last time we fucked?_

“...just, I mean. Jesus. I’ve missed you, is all. We’re friends.”

The train crawled to a stop.

“...Right?”

Anna closed her eyes, throat tight. “Yes. Yes, we are.” And then, refusing to consider whether she meant it: “...I’ve missed you, too.”

“If you’re both quite ready?” Simcoe interjected, standing once more. “...We’ve arrived. I’d like to conclude our business before dark.”

Simcoe made no move to help as Abe stretched up on tiptoe to snag his Columbia backpack from the luggage rack, merely trailed an odd and lingering gaze over Anna before exiting the car. Anna made to follow, but before she could slip by, Abe caught her by the hand. She turned to find him already looking at her, his face so close that there was no escaping from the blue of his eyes.

“Listen—it’s gonna be all right. No matter what happens. Promise ya.” His mouth quirked at one corner, but his eyes were serious. “I’m _here_ for you, okay? I always have been. Right?”

Standing there in his skinny jeans and his sweatshirt and that stupid, unflattering hat, he looked far younger than Anna felt. In the shop, when he’d arrived, she’d broken down as she tried to tell him everything she’d just learned, and when he put his arms around her shaking shoulders, she hadn’t pulled away from him, hadn’t let herself remember what had happened the last time he comforted her. For that moment, he had simply been her Abe once more: her first friend, first love, and first ally in so many of the battles that had come before.

_But it was Abigail who met Akinbode with me in Boston. Caleb who showed me how to lure him. Ben who came to Setauket just to keep me company. And is it you, Abe, who visits me almost every day now, when sometimes the promise of that visit is the only thing that gets me through the day?_

_The last time I let you be there for me, you stuck your tongue down my throat._

Anna forced her mouth to smile, imagining hooks at the corners once more. “Right,” she promised, and slipped her hand from his.

 

\---

 

What would she have done, in the beginning, if she’d known it would end like this?

_The first time I see you, Selah, the night is alight with fire and the flashing of sirens: the havoc of a protest gone wrong. There is broken glass beneath our feet. There is blood drying in the well of your lips. Yet amidst all the chaos, you are a fixed and quiet point._

South Jersey was beautiful. Even after the train, it was a bit of drive here to the coast, to this small town cradled by the pines on one side and the glimmering Atlantic on the other. She hadn’t seen the sea so blue since last summer. She couldn’t take her eyes off it as she followed the long line of Simcoe’s shadow along the wharf, Abe a ghost at her back.

The wind snapped at Simcoe’s coat, tossed his auburn curls. Tore at his voice, already so thin, as he called back over his shoulder to her:

“When Akinbode first approached me with your contract, I admit that I expected it to be quite routine. We find most missing husbands in a younger woman’s bed somewhere, or a younger man’s. Most debtors turn up in ditches or jail. Few manage to hide for more than a few weeks, so the cases in which they do are always a fun change of pace.”

_Blood on your lips and blood on your forehead, and we’ve only just met, but I give you my scarf, my favorite blue scarf, to stop the bleeding. God, how it brings out the color of your eyes. I never ask for it back. You never give it back. Not even after we marry. Not even after you leave. You could take our money; you could take me; but you take a piece of bloodstained silk instead, as though it still meant something to you, even then._

“Those fortunate enough to elude detection so long typically have help. I first paid a visit to his relatives in Connecticut. They denied everything, of course, but it took only light pressure to convince them to reveal the truth. Strong _had_ come to them, of course. But long before. And by the time my hunt began, he was long gone.”

_Abe is wed and I am broken, I am—not the strong woman I always wanted to be. Gutted by a man, tendons sliced at the heels, collapsed. Consumed with the fear that if I am so easy to leave, will anyone ever love me again? And you—you are the first to try. Was that all it was, in the end? Was our entire marriage nothing more than an accident of the fact that you were the one who happened to catch me when I fell?_

“It soon became clear that we were not dealing with a run-of-the-mill unfaithful husband or desperate debtor. Your husband’s troubles went deeper than the financial, I suspect … which likely accounts for his success on the lam. I doubt he could have made it so long without aid from persons with prior experience in the less legal aspects of life—which, of course, has made them difficult to identify or locate as well.”

_I do, I do; I say I love you, and I do, don’t I? Maybe not as much as I love Abe; never as much as I love Abe; but there are different ways to love. Abe is the fire that warms me but you are the candle that lights my way, and you never burn hot enough to hurt._

The Ranger trotted merrily up the steps at the end of the wharp, the hobnails of his boots clacking against the wood. “Honestly, he might have made a clean getaway of it if he hadn’t gotten in that fight.”

_I learn to love your silences. I learn to love your mysteries and your moods, learn to love how serious you are about tea, learn to dream of you, even, and there comes a day when I slide my hand up the inside of my thigh and no longer picture Abe’s face._

“A _fight?”_ Abe repeated, stumbling to keep up. Anna said nothing. She was too caught up in how like Selah’s eyes the blue of the sea was and in the thought of his beautiful face. Square jaw; perfect symmetry; blood pooling in the deep philtrum of that cupid’s-bow curve. So lovely and so _angry_ —such bitterness and such righteous rage simmering just below that perfect skin, just as it had simmered below Anna’s own.

“A bit of a dustup in a tavern—nothing very interesting. They threw him in the drunk tank for it. No charges pressed, didn’t even bother confirming his ID, typical small-town lackadaisicalness for you, and the next morning, he was out. It was enough, however. I happened upon his arrest record while combing mugshots for men matching Strong’s description, and the trail was live again.”

_Then your silences grow heavy. Your moods darken, and all I have left of you once you’ve gone, my love, are those mysteries scattered around my feet like so much broken glass._

“At the time, of course, I hardly suspected I was already too late.”

Boats drifted through the harbor: sailboats out for leisure, fishing sloops with their lines dragging along the sides. It was the sort of sleepy seaside village she imagined Setauket must have been once, and it seemed far too idyllic to have ever played host to horror.

At the end of the wharf stood a quaint and unassuming building whose planks had been warped by the spray and whose whitewash siding was peeling with salt. The harbormaster’s office. Simcoe opened the door without knocking and ducked under the low lintel as though it were his own home, but Anna’s boots seemed to stick on the pier just before the threshold. No matter how she willed them to move, she simply could not—

“Hey.” Hands on her upper arms, rubbing them through her sweater. Abe’s lips at her ear. “I got ya. It’s gonna be okay.”

She shrugged off his touch before stepping inside.

Her eyes adjusted to the dusty gloom in time to catch an exchange between Simcoe and the harbormaster: a fold of bills passing from the former to the latter, a large manila envelope in the other direction. She felt sick to her stomach as Simcoe opened the envelope.

“Roughly two months ago, in February, Strong secured a place on a commercial fishing boat headed south. This particular captain had a bit of a _reputation_ , one might say, for transporting cargo that might be frowned upon. Human beings included, when the price was right.”

From the envelope, he removed documents, charts, photographs. She caught a glimpse of Selah’s face in profile and twisted her fingers in the cuffs of her sleeves.

_Would I still have let you catch me in the first place, if I’d known it would end like this?_

“Strong was using an assumed name, but I’ve locals who assure me they witnessed him boarding the vessel in question.” The Ranger handed her a crew manifest full of names that meant nothing to her and a port schedule she couldn’t read. “The boat left in the morning and was scheduled to arrive at its destination the following midday.”

“And?” ventured Abe, voice low. She’d already told him, but he still sounded ready to be proved wrong.

_And I knew you were gone either way, my love._

“And there was a storm that night. The boat did not arrive on schedule. To be more precise, it never arrived at all. At its scheduled destination or anywhere else.”

 _And I thought I’d learned to live with your absence_.

“What did arrive, after a few days, was the body of one of the boat’s crewmen. It washed up not far from here. He’d drowned.” Simcoe said it as though remarking on pleasant weather. From the envelope, he pulled one final item. “And a few days after that, this.”

_But I never dreamed how sharp the difference would be between “My husband is missing” and “My husband is dead.”_

In Simcoe’s outstretched hand lay an open leather wallet, stained with brine and warped. The driver’s license inside was ruined enough that, if she tried, Anna could half pretend she couldn’t recognize the blurred face in the photo and or read the faded ink on the name. But there was nothing ambiguous to her about the scrap of sky-blue silk tucked into the billfold, its edge mottled with red-brown stains.

“Jesus,” Abe muttered under his breath as Anna’s view of the wallet slowly blurred. “Jesus, man, put that away. We get it.”

Anna didn’t stay to watch whether Simcoe did. Her shoulder knocked against Abe’s as she spun and pushed her way to the door. Outside, she braced her hand against the wall and let the wind sting her eyes as she stared at the way the afternoon sun glimmered white-gold on the crests of the waves. The sea looked so peaceful. So calm. As though it would be a painless thing to slip through the surface and drift to the floor—as easy and as gentle as falling asleep.

They took rooms in a local bed and breakfast, she and Abe. _Separate_ rooms, as she wearily corrected the host. Evening already, and the thought of another four hours on the road back to Setauket—on a _train_ , no less; in front of all those stranger’s impassive eyes—was simply too much. In the hallway upstairs, Abe leaned against his doorjamb and she leaned against hers, staring at his feet as he spoke.

“It—it doesn’t prove anything, you know. Ol’ creepy-eyes back there might be sure, but we can keep looking; maybe there’s a chance—”

“No. It’s done. I just want it to be done.”

“...There’ll be, y’know. Legal stuff now. Paperwork. I’ll make sure you get the right help.”

Anna nodded, barely listening. She wondered if he’d ask his father to help her and whether Mary would murmur polite sympathies when she heard, even if some secret part of her thought it served Anna right.

“You gonna be okay tonight?”

Did he care about all the nights after this, too, or did those not matter as much because he wouldn’t be there? “I’ll be fine.”

She could tell by the jiggling of his foot that he had something to say. “...That’s really it, then? ‘It’s done.’ Simple as that.”

“...Would you rather I wail a little? Gnash my teeth?”

“I didn’t mean it like that and you know it. Just … didn’t think you’d be able to let it go so easy.” Anna squeezed her eyes so tight it hurt. The thudding pressure of a headache was building behind her forehead, and more than anything in the world, she wished that he would just. Shut. Up. “Are you gonna be okay with that, I mean? Never knowing exactly what happened to him? Always wondering why he left?”

The tight pursing of her lips was the only answer she could give. He seemed to take the hint; his foot stopped jiggling at once. A loose shoelace on his worn Converse trailed along the floor as he shifted his stance, straightened, stepped back.

“Okay. Sorry. For, you know. All of it.”

But as he turned to step inside his room, she lifted her head at last. “Why did _you_ leave, Abe?”

He froze in his doorway. “What?”

The words seemed to come with no planning; she made no decision to speak them; perhaps they had always been waiting in her throat and had gotten sick of lingering there at last. “I can't help but think about how things might have turned out differently. With us. If you hadn’t broken our engagement … would any of this have happened? Would Selah still be alive?” Her fingers curled in the fabric of her sweater, hands balling into fists. “All this time, and you’ve never given me a real answer. How was it _so easy_ for you to leave me?”

It was always the same dance with Abe. First, he looked stunned; then he threw his walls up, visibly preparing his clumsy deflections, his bad lies; then he sighed and slipped off his beanie to rake back his hair, as though he knew it made him look younger and more vulnerable. “It _wasn’t_ —look, Anna, it wasn’t that simple.”

“It was.”

“No—”

“ _Yes_ , it _was_. I _loved_ you, you said you loved me, what could _possibly_ be more simple than that?”

A sound at the end of the hall whipped both their heads around. The creak of someone walking up the stairs. Anna let her voice drag Abe’s attention back to her. “I know … I know it got hard, there at the end. But we could have _fought_ for us. We could have tried.”

The footsteps stopped. Anna glanced at the end of the hall, but the figure at the top of the stairs merely stood there, watching them from afar.

“Tell me the truth,” she whispered, desperate to hold Abe’s gaze. His eyes kept slipping away. “ _Please_.”

Blue eyes flicked to hers.

“The truth is, Anna, some things just aren’t meant to be. Simple as that.” The footsteps began to approach, clicking faintly on the hardwood floors, and Abe sent another glance down the hall before stepping backwards over the threshold into his room. He didn’t offer her another smile or another look. “Try to get some sleep.”

She didn’t move a muscle after his door shut. Stood there with her arms crossed over her chest and her shoulder slumped against the doorjamb, staring at the cheery cross-stitch hanging on his door, as measured footsteps approached. Not until they stopped a few paces away and silence reigned did she stir.

“Mr. Simcoe. I’d have thought you would’ve gone.”

“Soon. Business calls, but I wouldn’t be so rude as to leave without saying good-bye.” As though in afterthought, he magnanimously spread his hands. “I am, of course, here to console you if you so require.”

She stared at him with swollen eyes. “...Did you need something?”

His mouth, as he let his arms drop, quirked into the faintest suggestion of a frown. He reached into the breast of his jacket. “I hardly meant to intrude. Merely to give you this.” That envelope again. She made no move to take it. “I don’t suppose you have any ideas about precisely what motivated your husband to leave?”

The envelope kept creeping closer till she finally snatched it up. “No. Nor do I _want_ to.”

“No? I think it could be a very rewarding question to pursue.”

Holding the envelope flat against her stomach, she flicked a glance up at him. He wore studied disinterest well, but she’d been prey often enough that she could smell a predator even when the quarry wasn’t her. “...And _your_ ideas, Mr. Simcoe?”

“John. Please.”

Anna pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes until, at last, he gave a nonchalant shrug.

“As you wish. I’m afraid my ideas are still vague, and likely too bleak for the moment. As I said, however, I do believe the circumstances were hardly limited to debts or marital decline. Your husband was a bit of a radical in his youth, was he not?”

“A lot of people are radicals in their youth.”

“And some never grow out of it. I wonder: What becomes of those who don’t?”

She barely even time to take the implication in before Simcoe seemed to dismiss the idea with an easy tilt of the head. “Well, who knows. I must confess, I’m inclined to pursue this matter with or without your involvement, Mrs. Strong. If following your husband’s trail leads me to discoveries of further interest, it could mean considerable profit for me—and significant ramifications for you. Some silver linings, perhaps. _If_ you choose to involve yourself.”

She drew into herself, her arms folded tight across her chest. “Is this your way of trying to squeeze more money out of me? Shit luck, sir. I don’t have any.”

“To the contrary, this is quite to your benefit. Any discoveries I make concerning your husband’s activities, or the activities of his friends, may well fall on you—for good or ill. You’d do well to choose your side now.”

“I don’t have a side.”

“...I strongly advise you reconsider.”

“I appreciate the concern. But I can’t take this anymore. I’m done.”

The gaze Simcoe levelled on her was cool and impenetrable and lingered too long. She refused to do anything other than match him stare for stare. At last, he lifted his eyebrows and shrugged.

“A pity. I was rather looking forward to continuing our partnership.” Slowly, he pivoted on one heel and, boots clicking, sauntered back toward the stairs. “Till we meet again!”

 

\---

 

 _If I am so easy to leave_ , thought Anna, unpinning her hair.

The lace-shaded lamp by the bedside cast a mottled glow over the room as she undressed. Her boots stood where she’d kicked her way out of them. Her jeans lay in a tangle on the floor. She dragged her sweater over her head and tossed it aside without looking where, followed by both stockings, the left one frayed through at the heel and the right one at the toe, till she wore nothing but a black tank and panties patterned with tiny cartoon bees. Bare limbs prickled in the cold as she studied herself in the oval mirror above the vanity, tracing a finger along the collarbone that Selah had always loved to kiss when she lay beneath him. Her heart ached dully with the realization that she couldn’t even remember how long it had been since they made love.

_If I am so easy to leave, how can I afford to fall in love again._

There was a sickness in her. An old wound that had festered and started leaking poison into her veins. She felt it gnawing at her heart as she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and feeling as though all the weight of the ocean were crushing her lungs. With each sleepless moment, the infection spread. Soon it would eat right through her bones and leave her hollow. Which would be best, she wondered: To cut the infection out like an abscess? Or to fill it with something new and hope the wound would heal?

Her fingertips traced circles on her stomach as she tried to recall the feeling of Selah’s body atop hers. His arms a cage on either side of her head, his chest flattening her breasts. God, what she wouldn’t give to be able to hold him one last time.

Anna closed her eyes.

_If I fall—_

Hand slipping down her stomach to the inside of her thigh. Remembering hipbones sharp against hers, the slide of Selah’s hand up thigh, hip, ribs, breast, throat—

_If Edmund is the one who catches me now—_

Heels dragging in the sheets as she drew her knees up high, slid a hand beneath her shirt and up, up, thinking of lips on her collarbone, sweat on her tongue, heat; her upper arm pushing against the side of her breast—

— _is it only because he happens to be standing closest by?_

God, Selah, god, _Abe_ ; a thousand nights to learn the difference in their bodies and to still feel, in the gentle drag of her own thumb beneath the waistband of her panties and the pressure when she pulled the fabric taut, the overlapping sensation of two different men and two different Annas in days so far removed that it seemed impossible that all these memories could belong to the same person. She tried to push the memories away, tried to conjure anonymous hands and a faceless lover whose name carried no pain, but the image kept slipping, impossible to separate from the shape of Selah’s shoulders or the scent of Abe’s cheap cologne. Furrowing her brow, she let her head loll to one side.

 _And if I let him_ … Nose pressed into the pillow, lips ajar … _If I trust him_ … Shorter than Selah, taller than Abe, more slender than either, and his hands—his hands were the only part of him she’d touched, and they were callused between his fingers where the reins rubbed but soft on the palms; they would be so gentle on her skin … _If I learn to picture his face at night_ ...

Anna’s eyes opened. Her hand lay cupped between the press of her thighs, her tank top rucked up just beneath her breasts. One inch. One inch and one ounce of courage, and she wouldn’t have needed to imagine what he might taste like on the skin below the corner of his jaw; she would’ve _known_.

_How will I survive it when he realizes how easy I am to leave, too._

Her cheeks were wet. She let her legs slide back down the length of the bed and her hand fall to the side. There was an ache in her heart and an ache in her head, and the dull ache beneath her palm simply could not compete. Would it really be worth suffering all this again when all she had left of him was a chrysanthemum crumbling into dust, she wondered—and already knew the answer in her heart.

Anna’s hair tumbled over her shoulders as she sat up. Sunset still filtered in through the curtains; gulls still cried over the sea. Still early, then. Early enough. She dragged the back of a wrist across her eyes, then retrieved her phone from the nightstand and scrolled through her contacts to the very end.

The phone rang once. She lay on her side with her knees curled up to her chest. Twice—

_“Whitehall of Setauket, how may I help you?”_

Of course no receptionist of Richard’s would let the phone go past two rings. Anna found herself suddenly unprepared, the words sticking in her throat. “Y-yes, hello—I’m calling for Edmund Hewlett?”

_“I’m sorry, Mr. Hewlett has left the office for the day. May I take a message?”_

But … it was still light outside. Edmund never left the office so early, not even when he came to see her. “Oh—um. No. No, that’s all right,” she managed on autopilot, fingers twisting nervously in her hair. Her heart sank with the dread of having to find the courage to make this call a second time. “Actually—Actually, I know this might be, um, unusual, but it’s sort of urgent ... Is there any chance you’d be able to give me his cell?”

 

\---

 

Edmund was sitting in the park at dusk, watching the ducks wash themselves in the millpond and contemplating how enviably uncomplicated life must be as a duck, when his mobile rang. Startled from thoughts of anatine tranquility—ducks, he was quite certain, never felt this way; ducks never so utterly lost their bearings, nor wasted time fretting over the inner workings of their fellow flyers’ minds—he fished the phone from his pocket with a sigh, expecting to see Whitehall on the screen.

An unlisted number flashed instead. His brow furrowed, but he answered with a curt, “Hewlett speaking.”

_“I’ve been thinking about your question, from before.”_

Edmund’s spine straightened as he recognized the voice. He leaned forward on the bench and tried to block out the traffic’s ambient noise as the caller continued,

_“Regarding Mrs. Strong.”_

“Mr. Simcoe,” said Edmund, standing. Pedestrians flowed by him on the path, but he paid them no mind.

_“I did say I’d be in touch. I trust this isn’t a bad time?”_

The sun was sitting, the air beginning to grow cool. Edmund drifted down the path beneath the shade of flowering trees. “Not at all. I trust all is well with our mutual client?”

 _“As well as can be expected. Yet I fear for her, to be entirely frank.”_ A pause, just long enough for Edmund’s poor heart to stumble a few beats. _“Proceedings regarding her husband have reached a critical juncture, and I find myself facing a choice of how to proceed.”_

Edmund found himself eyeing the ducks narrowly now, warier with every word. “I’m listening.”

_“Mrs. Strong … lacks the perspective, I think, and the experience in such matters to properly consider the issue in front of her. I’ve tried to advise her, but it does take time to establish a rapport.”_

At a split in the path, Edmund paused, taking a breath. _Well, Hewlett? Forfeit or fight?_

“...If there’s anything I can do,” he repeated, the words heavy with finality on his tongue.

_“There is, in fact. I think we can do business, you and I. When would you be able to meet?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Honestly, this chapter is weird and I don't know what to say about it. The course of true love never did run smooth, I suppose; Edmund seems to have made his choice, but will Anna forfeit or fight? If it's a bit unclear at this point what Simcoe's up to or what he's alluding to about poor Selah, never fear: clarity awaits. At least, as much clarity as we can trust from someone like Simcoe.
> 
> I've mentioned elsewhere but forgot to ever add it in the notes here: you can now find more Turn stuff from me, including art, on tumblr (calamity-bean.tumblr.com)! I've started being active enough there now that I think I can justify the call-out. Hit me up. Now, show quotes:
> 
> S1E8 ("Challenge") served as some general inspiration for this chapter, and I quoted/paraphrased specifically from the following conversation between Anna and Abe: "I can't help but think about how things might have turned out differently ... If you hadn't broken our engagement, none of this would've happened," "It wasn't that simple," "It was," "No. No," "Yes, it was...Tell me the truth," "The truth is some things just aren't meant to be."
> 
> S2E8 ("Providence"): I would never pass up a chance to use Simcoe's, "I'm here to console you if you so require," which has the honor of being possibly my favorite Simcoe line ever (tied with "You're not filled with terror at my vengeful lust?").
> 
> The title of the chapter, of course, comes from that of S2E5 (one of my favorites), and the choice of setting from the prison ship _Jersey_.


	13. Kava-Kava

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which altered states of scenery and/or consciousness are had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads-up for minor blood/violence this time. Title refers to the kava-kava (or just kava) plant, which is drunk as an infusion that imparts deep and dreamless sleep (as well as entheogenic effects, potentially). This chapter was a struggle (and is still, perhaps, a bit of a mess), but here we go! 
> 
> Recommended listening for this chapter/always is capetian's beautiful Anna-inspired 8tracks ([here!](http://capetian.tumblr.com/post/139765849003)); also be sure not to miss silveredplanets's awesome LOA aesthetic edit ([here!](http://calamity-bean.tumblr.com/post/140600317272/silveredplanets-anna-strong-is-trying))—thank you both SO much again! Guys, I'm honestly dazzled by the amount of enthusiasm and support the fandom continues to show this fic. I wouldn't still be here if I didn't have fun writing it for its own sake, but it's incredibly heartwarming and rewarding to see that it makes other people happy, too. Love you all lots, thanks for being magical.

Warmth on her skin, gentle and coaxing. Nothing more than fingerprints of it falling dappled through the lace curtains as the sun rose and crept its way up the bed, along the line of her arm, over her neck, cheek, eyes. Here in the space between sleep and waking, where she had no future, no past, nothing but the sensation of falling so languidly that she’d never reach the ground, each drop felt like a soft and separate kiss pressed against her skin with lips too light to linger.

Anna awoke with a smile.

A smile that froze the moment her eyes opened and took in the unfamiliar shape of the room. A smile that lasted only long enough for memory to seep in. And in its wake, a gnawing guilt. Heart weighted down so heavily that she could scarcely breathe, much less haul her ass out of bed, she stared at the ceiling of the B&B and wondered, definitely not for the first time and probably not for the last, precisely what the hell was wrong with her.

She was still working her way down the list when the first knock sounded at the door.

 

\---

 

“Have you ever dreamt of nothing?”

There were too many straight lines in this park. Straight paths, straight trees, straight borders to the plantings; you could map the whole place out down to the inch, if you were inclined to that particular flavor of madness. All you’d need was a ruler and too much spare time. Anna could think of one person, at least, who might’ve been tempted by the idea. Perched on a bench whose back and seat joined at ninety degrees, she rested her forearm on her knee and tried to think of anyone and anything else.

“I don’t mean not dream, or not remember whether you dreamed, which isn’t hardly any different, really. What I mean is … You dream, but not _about_ anything. Or anyone. No scenarios, no sensations, no thoughts, no memories, no sense of time or place or emotion or narrative, just … hours upon hours of colorless dark.”

“Uh. That sounds ... miserable, Annie, that sounds really pretty miserable. No, not that I recall. Have you?”

“Only once.” In the space between their thighs lay their joined hands. The brush of a thumb over Anna’s knuckles, back and forth, back and forth, was the sort of quiet comfort that made her think of people who put on a smile when truly they wanted to cry. “Last night. For a long time. I felt every second of it.”

As she continued, they watched the passersby, the pigeons, watched the neighborhood kids kicking a soccer ball around in an impromptu match with no goalposts or boundaries that Anna could reckon.

“I was _so_ sure I’d dream of him. You’re meant to, right? They say sleep helps convert memories, you know, from short term to long term; it’s meant to help you process the events of the day. You’d think yesterday would be the sort of thing my subconscious would be interested in processing. I dreaded sleeping, but I didn’t know what else to do … So I just sort of _lay_ there. Listening to doors opening in the hallway. Listening to the gulls, while they were still out, then to the nightbirds, then the ocean. And after all that, in the end, I didn’t even…”

She drew a deep breath before daring to voice the question that had haunted her all day. “Does it make me a bad person, that I didn’t? Like—I don’t know. Like I didn’t even love him enough, really, to properly mourn.”

“Oh god, _Anna_. Anna, no. It doesn’t have to _mean_ anything. Look—you were tired. You had a hell of a day. And it left you too worn out to dream. Don’t you dare start telling yourself it’s anything deeper than that.”

“...What kind of wife doesn’t dream of her husband the night he dies, Abby,” she wondered, half to herself, and heard resignation in her friend’s sigh.

When Anna arrived at the train station with nothing more than a few hours’ advance warning and a two-word phone-call explanation of what was wrong, the first thing Abigail had done was wrap her up in a hug that might’ve snapped a lesser woman’s spine. The second thing was categorically veto Anna’s intended itinerary, which had been short, sweet, and to the point: _Arrive at Abigail’s couch. Establish new home on Abigail’s couch. Spend foreseeable future stewing in own misery on Abigail’s couch until physically forced to return home_. It was proving difficult to get any quality stewing done out here the heart of Philadelphia, in this tidy little park a stone’s throw from Independence Hall, where her emotions felt so hemmed in by the inflexible paths.

Didn’t city blocks have enough straight lines without making their only spots of greenery boring, too? Parks should be winding and wild. Filled not with Bradford pears and fastidious flowerbeds but with briars, heather, willows twisting their roots through the hillside and trailing their catkins through lakes fathomless dark. The sort of place where you might expect to round a corner and discover a ruined colonnade or a passage into another world. In a park like _that_ , her mind would have room to breathe. Here…

Here, her eye kept drifting unbidden toward a flower planting arranged in a spiral, and every time she saw it, she thought how much Edmund would appreciate that.

“If what Simcoe says is true, Selah died _two months_ ago,” Abby was saying. Anna dragged her gaze back to her friend, who was frowning at her with sympathy but more than a little chastisement, too. “And he’s been as good as gone a lot longer than that. I think you’ve done more than your share of mourning since.”

Did that really matter, though? Did those two months mean anything at all, given that she hadn’t _known_ he was dead till the previous afternoon? She was searching for the courage to ask when Abigail leaned over with a whispered warning: “Incoming.”

Anna had just enough time to snap a smile on her face and try to blink the redness from her eyes. Then Cicero was there, running over to them from the soccer group with grass stains on his knees and a breathless grin on his face.

“Mama! Mama, Miss Anna, did you see? I made a goal!”

“Sure did, baby.” Abigail and her son high-fived, both grinning. Anna managed a nod. She didn’t dare trust herself to speak, not when they’d agreed there was no reason Cicero needed to know about Selah just yet.

The boy wobbled on one twiggy leg as he picked a clump of mud out of the tread of the opposite shoe. “How long are you gonna be staying with us, Miss Anna?”

“Oh, sweetheart, not very long,” she answered at the same time that Abby said, “As long as she needs.” Big brown eyes gave Anna a firm look, then turned back to her son. “Why don’t you keep on playing, honey, and I’ll go find us somethin’ to eat?”

The promise of food had always worked wonders on Cicero. He darted back to the game, and with privacy restored, Abigail laid her free hand on Anna’s shoulder and rubbed soothingly.

“We can talk more tonight, after he goes to bed. About Selah, if you like. Or about whatever.” Abby’s mouth quirked at the corners in a decent attempt at a smile. It couldn’t quite wash the concern from her eyes. “You never did tell me how all that nonsense turned out with your lawyer friend.”

Cicero’s soccer match seemed extraordinarily interesting all of a sudden. Much better that she look at that than have to meet Abigail’s eyes.

“...It showed promise,” she murmured at last, and hoped that would be enough—but Abby snatched her hand from hers.

“Oh no. No, you did _not_ just do that.”

“What? What have I done?”

“You know exactly what you did. You past tensed me. You used the past tense, and now I’m supposed to say, ‘ _Showed’? Not ‘shows’?_ , and then you’ll sigh and act like I’m prying the story out of you when, really, you’ve been dying to say.” Clearly she’d known Abigail too long: she seemed to have developed an immunity to Anna’s glares. “So just go ahead and tell me. What changed.”

She’d read a story, back in college, about a garden. The kind she’d like. A wild, winding sprawl: vast and labyrinthine and boasting an infinite number of endlessly branching paths, one for each possible choice a person could ever make.

Down how many of those paths had she already died? Down how many had Selah—and down how many had he not? And didn’t something about the metaphysical madness of it all imply that, if she had simply never learned of his death, Selah would still, after a manner of speaking, be _alive_ —alive in her mind if nowhere else?

Perhaps he still was, in some other version in the truth: carried forward within her down some different path.

“...I’m less than a day into widowhood, Abigail. It just doesn’t seem like the time.”

When Abigail stood, Anna thought that was the end of it. Until the other woman sighed.

“Anna.” Abby held her hands up, and Anna copied the movement so that their palms pressed together in the space between where she sat and Abby stood, each of their hands supporting the other. Abigail was looking at her with the indulgent fondness one might reserve for a pet that’s very beloved, but exceptionally dumb. “There’s _always_ gonna be some reason to put off living your life.”

_Anna awakes smiling._

_She is still lying in bed when the knock sounds at the door. A pause, then several more knocks before she drags herself out from the covers and across the room._

_“Mornin’. You, uh. You ‘bout ready to get outta here?”_

_Backpack over his shoulder, beanie screwed down over his ears, fully dressed. So eager to get back to his studies? So eager to get back to his wife? Standing in the doorway, Anna lets the door creak open fully, not caring that her hair is a thicket or that her tank top falls only halfway down her hips, leaving the lower half of her underwear exposed. Taking a savage bit of pleasure from the obvious discomfort in Abe’s face as his eyes flick down, flick back up, do a credible job of staying on her face._

_What does he see there, she wonders. She no longer trusts her own expressions._

_“You go.”_

_“What?”_

_“You go ahead. I’m—I’m going to stop in Philly, I think. Just for a visit. See how Abigail’s settling in.” Anna turns away from the door. She has to drag each limb through the motions as though on strings. “I don’t think I’m … ready to go home just yet.”_

_Not until she’s certain Abe’s gone does Anna, thighs cold as she sits cross-legged on her room’s floor, reach once more for her phone._

_“Whitehall of Setauket. I still can’t give you his number.”_

_Her finger is twisting a lock of hair anxiously around her finger. It freezes. “...Sorry, I don’t know what you mean,” she says in a voice that’s maybe, perhaps, a shade higher-pitched and snootier than usual. And, perhaps, a bit hoarse. “I was returning a call from a Mr. Hewlett?”_

_“Ma’am, the call log shows me the phone number every time. Same number calls two days in a row, I catch on. I’m sorry, but I’m simply not allowed to give out personal phone numbers without written permission.”_

_Anna folds herself in half, rests her forehead against her knee with a sigh. “Okay, just—just put me through to his extension, then? Please. I just really … need to hear …”_

_“Mr. Hewlett called Mr. Woodhull this morning. He won’t be in today.”_

_Brow pressing into her kneecap, hair falling around her face. The first tendril of worry curls within her. “Is he … sick?”_

_“...I don’t believe so. I’m told there was an emergency out of town.” A crackling sigh, and when the receptionist spoke again, it sounded almost like a human being on the other end of the line rather than a robot._ _“Look, I can give you his e-mail address? He’ll probably be checking it. Or I could put you through to his office voicemail. I’m not sure whether to expect him in tomorrow either, though, so it might not be till Monday that he gets your message.”_

If every person who had ever been alive had their own garden, and every choice they had ever made branched off a new path—how slender were the chances that, out of all those possibilities, two peoples’ courses could intersect even once?

“I’ll be right back,” Abigail promised, squeezing Anna’s hand once more before she left. Anna forced something like a smile onto her face and turned her eyes to Cicero, watching him play without truly seeing a thing.

There had been a moment, that morning, in which she’d forgotten. The moment after oblivion and before full consciousness; after dawn finally pulled her free from the hours of maddening nothingness but while her mind remained soft and sluggish with sleep. In that moment, she hadn’t thought even once of Selah. Hadn’t even recalled where she was or why she was there or what had happened to the man she’d said she loved. No; the only thought in her head had been that she had better get up and get around, or else she was going to be late to the shop.

And she’d smiled, because Edmund would be coming by today, and she couldn’t wait to see his face.

 _Where are you, Edmund?_ she fretted now, watching the children play, and still could not shake the hollow guilt of being the sort of woman who, instead of dreaming of her husband, could wake up smiling to thoughts of another man.

 

\---

 

_Edmund falls._

A drama in two acts, falling. Acceleration at a rate of 9.8 meters per second per second followed sooner or later by that dreaded deceleration, abrupt and potentially devastating. After the fact, he never could seem to recall Act 1. It must have happened, of course, yet all he ever consciously experienced was being upright and steady one moment and, the next, feeling half a heartbeat of tumbling incomprehension that did not even register as _falling_ before—

— _shoulder cracking hard against wood, a blur of sky, noise, confusion, sand. His back hits the ground with a thud and knocks the wind from him. Sand on his cheek and copper in his mouth and Edmund cannot breathe, cannot seem to force himself to breathe. His lungs sink; his diaphragm flutters uselessly in his chest; and as his mind begins to race, he tries to sit, but his ribs squeeze tight as vices and his vision is a blur and he cannot understand, for a moment, why he’s sitting there or—_

Possibilities, uncertainties, quantum systems that behave differently when observed and others that exist in a dozen different states simultaneously, their innumerable possibilities layered one atop the other. In one possibility, at least, he fell. But alternately:

_He does not fall; he never falls; he only flies. Poised in half seat with hips rocking in the front of the saddle as his heart beats in time with the strides that he counts between fences by rote. Land, one, two, three … And then: that final moment before the jump. A coil of anticipation as the horse gathers beneath him. His mind churns with a thousand thoughts at once—heels down, shoulders back, the oxer next, get ready for it, flying lead change and then six strides, so sight your line—yet at the same time, nothing exists in all the world but for himself and the obstacle and his horse. The three of them eternally suspended in one moment divorced of past or future._

_Boy and horse alike stretch forward as Bucephalus takes flight._

A drama in two acts, falling, and Act 2 inevitable as any tragedy. _Landing_. Land hard, land soft, land on your feet or off them; _pray_ you land so soon after falling that you’ve not even the time to register the drop. For what could be worse than to have time to _think_ about it. Stomach swooping out from beneath you … The wind tearing at your skin, hair, clothes, faster and faster until, at two hundred kilometers per hour, you feel yourself borne upon a cushion of air and seem to float … Even as the ground continues to rush upward before your eyes.

It would be a very fine thing, wouldn’t it, falling. If not for that pesky end.

But what _if?_

Isolate one moment in the air and unravel the possibilities: quantum superposition painting a perfect paradox of Platonic _being_ and _becoming_ as an object simultaneously _is_ in one spot in the air yet is _becoming_ another too fast to see. Reject the geocentric notion of gravity’s inevitability, and might it not be possible, on some other planet or in some other life, to fall without ceasing, spiraling free and blissful through the untenably vast space between the stars? And with the consequences of landing removed, wouldn’t the only thing left to falling be the exhilaration of flight?

_He does not fall; he never falls; the horse balks but he holds fast—_

No.

The stark reality:

_He is counting strides on the approach to the next jump, but the horse is fighting. This mare is always fighting, he hates it, hates her, and it’s an utter injustice that his trainer insists he ride her—why should he bother when he could be riding Bucephalus instead? Willing and smooth-gaited Bucephalus, who always greets Edmund by nuzzling around in his jacket in search of treats and who simply seems to understand Edmund in a way that even his parents no longer can. A way that nobody can, honestly._

_Especially not the mare._

_The decades have erased her name. Small, sweet-eyed, stubborn. Fourteen hands of plush chocolate coat and a mouth so tender she flies into a rage at the barest touch of the reins. Her name is gone, perhaps, as must she be by now, but here in the flickering theatre of dreams where, half-lucid, he rides through a watercolor wash of memories all frayed and fading at the edges, he still vividly remembers her._

_Land, one, two, three, too fast, much too fast, too extended, she won’t manage a good arc over the jump at this pace, and he is trying to collect her on the approach, but the more he pulls on the reins, the harder she runs. And Edmund is a good rider. An experienced rider, if still young. But still, as she thunders forward entirely out of his control, Edmund finds that he is … frightened. Desperate and frightened and his mind so scattered about that the fence is looming and he can’t even remember what line he’s meant to take next, and so, heart racing, he does the first thing that comes to mind:_

_He jerks viciously on the reins._

_Her head jerks. Her entire body jerks, stumbles. The toe of one boot slips from the stirrup as, only feet before the jump, she spins and lurches away—_

_He never remembers falling. He remembers lying in the sand with pain flaring in his shoulder, arm, back, hip. Remembers numbness creeping toward panic as his chest grows tight. His trainer is kneeling at his side, saying something he can hardly understand, and only when he finally draws a shuddering breath can he sit up well enough to see._

_Stretched out before him: his legs. Clad in jodhpurs and, at the moment, sprawled half atop the rails of the vertical he’s just been thrown through. Beyond the wreckage of the jump: the mare. Standing placidly as anyone could please, her reins trailing along the ground as another trainer moves forward to catch her, and looking at him with those guileless eyes as though wondering what in heaven’s name he’s doing on the ground._

_Thirteen years old, Edmund wipes blood from his bitten lip and marvels at the sheen of it on his glove. Then he returns the mare’s gaze with dread. Knowing that as soon as his trainer is satisfied he’s unharmed, he’ll have to mount back up and try the course again._

_Edmund closes his eyes._

And opened them to light.

Sun, dappled and blinding. Warmth against one side of his face. A steady rattling in his ears and the sensation of motion around him, vibrating through the hard plastic chair digging into his spine. One moment, he is a child again and pretending to be hurt more badly than he actually is so that he can beg off the rest of the lesson; the next, he found himself staring with incomprehension at the unfamiliar scenery scrolling by on the other side of a foggy plastic window, feeling, as his mind stumbled to catch up, as though he were falling still, had never, in fact, _stopped_ falling, had spent the past two and half decades daydreaming through the motions of life while forever suspended in that powerless moment between the saddle and the sand.

Then he remembered where he was, and sighed.

The train. Yes, of course. Dragging one hand down his face, he spared a withering glance for the papers scattered over his lap and around his feet. Falling asleep in _public_ , with his face pressed up against a filthy window, no less, how _unhygienic_ , and then to dream of a horse he hadn’t ridden in close to thirty years … he truly _was_ getting ridiculous in his old age.

And, it seemed, more susceptible to the ravages of a sleepless night and a less-than-ideal napping situation. The way his back twinged when he bent to retrieve the fallen papers was almost enough to make him wish he were indeed thirteen again, spots and social inadequacies and all, if only for the way he could get thrown clear through a fence at that age and walk it off. With a shake of the read and a rather equine snort, he shuffled the papers straight.

Familiar faces peered out from the pages. Familiar names. His hand paused atop a marriage certificate, thumb brushing over one of the names printed at the top.

Who had she been, he wondered. Anna Smith. A disquieting thing, how uncannily well Strong suited her—as though Selah’s were the name she’d always been meant to have. And yet, for the majority of her existence, she’d been … someone he didn’t know at all. A different woman living a different life.

Then he slipped the page into his briefcase, along with every other scrap of information he had been able to uncover on Selah Strong. Beyond the curve of the track, he could just see the first spires of a skyline. With his elbow propped against the window and his chin in his hand, Edmund watched Philadelphia approach, wondering what splendors the Cradle of Liberty might hold.

 

\---

 

“ _Gracious_ ,” gasped Edmund, narrowly dodging a collision with a rather burly fellow in a green sports bib as the latter stumbled out a tavern doorway and promptly puked in the street. No other passersby seemed to notice. Edmund sidestepped the poor bloke gingerly, taking care not to get sick on his shoes, and lengthened his stride to catch up. “What in _God’s_ name is wrong with this city? It’s still light!”

The Athens of America, they called this place. Because of its history as a center of culture and its seminal role in the founding of a nation? Or because—today, at least—the entire municipality seemed engaged in a revel fit to make even Dionysus suggest that perhaps they ought to settle down? Every pub and restaurant had its doors open despite the lingering late-spring chill, and patrons were veritably spilling out the windows of each one.

Such was the tumult that he couldn’t even decipher what precisely they were all so enthused about. Their degree of collective intoxication, on the other hand, was unmistakable.

His companion glanced to the side as though only now noticing all the hullabaloo. Even the sight of one grown man shoving another into a table failed to crack the redhead’s placid stare.

“Inspiring, isn’t it? They take sport very seriously here.” Simcoe inclined his head toward one of the pubs. Inside, a vast television enjoyed pride of place upon one wall, and all adulation was focused upon the behelmeted little soldier running back and forth across it. “Not _quite_ the fervor of Cardiff, perhaps, or of devotees of the Old Firm, but Yanks do have a history of getting worked up over nothing.”

“This is ludicrous. Having pride in one’s community is all well and good, but this, this primitive _tribalism_ —I never understood it with our football and I certainly don’t understand it with the Americans’.” Edmund crinkled his nose as another wave of cheering went up, and noticed—yes, it wasn’t his imagination, he was _definitely_ getting glares. “And why in God’s name do they keep _looking_ at me?”

They’d stopped at a corner to wait on the light. It was surely only coincidence that the taller man kept putting himself between Edmund and sun, so that Edmund had to squint up at him, but a grating coincidence even so. Though it was difficult to tell with Simcoe’s face in shadow, he dared say the Ranger cracked the thinnest smile.

“An unfortunate coincidence on your part, I’m afraid. The visiting team’s colors are red.” He nodded at the well-loved guernsey Edmund was wearing over his dress shirt, then patted his own jacket. “You ought to have chosen green.”

Oh, for heaven’s _sake_ —it was true what they said, wasn’t it, about people turning into utter _imbeciles_ in a crowd. Perhaps this was why he’d never much excelled at playing with others as a child. Much better a sport that relied on the individual’s own prowess, or on a duo, like the close partnership between rider and horse.

A stab of old grief, then, unexpectedly fresh. _Years after he rides the mare, Edmund falls for the final time as Bucephalus—_

_No. Think of Anna. Only her._

“...I hope you have someplace more peaceable in mind for our business, then.” The light turned, and he took a deep breath as they crossed. In his best impression of indifference: “I presume our client will be meeting us there?”

“Mrs. Strong? I wouldn’t think so, no. Considering that, last I knew, she was still in New Jersey with her ferrety friend.”

It took Simcoe a few moments to realize he was no longer being followed. If nothing else, the delay gave Edmund time to pick up his jaw off the sidewalk and rearrange his features into something more indignant than stricken.

“Pardon—what in _hell_ do you mean?” Gritting his teeth, he wrestled with the bite in his voice. “Do you mean to tell me I came _all this way_ , sir, and Anna is not even—”

Simcoe blinked back at him over his shoulder. Da Vinci himself could not have painted a more convincing portrait of wide-eyed innocence.

“I said I would like to meet _regarding_ Mrs. Strong, not that she’d _be_ here. Really, Hewlett, you shouldn’t _assume_.”

“You shouldn’t _imply_ —” He pinched the bridge of his nose, grimacing. “Where _is_ she, Simcoe, what have you _done_. What business could you possibly have had with her in New Jersey.”

A grand sigh. “Assuming again, sir, and assuming the worst. I assure you, she’s quite well. Last I saw her, at least. I’m sure she and her little pet are arriving back in Setauket as we speak.”

They had passed another train, on his way south. He’d seen it before he fell asleep: a train headed in the opposite direction. _So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another_ , he thought, stricken by the idea of her leaning her domed brow against the window of that train and watching with those impenetrably dark eyes as another train made its way south with Edmund asleep within, papers all scattered over his lap. _Only a look and a voice … then darkness again. And a silence_.

A funny thing about her, his Anna. He hated to think it, given how warm she was sometimes, how free her opinions and how easy her laugh, and yet—yet there were times he hesitated even to let his hand brush against her own for fear he’d find hers cold and tense. He could return to 30th Street right now, he supposed, catch another train in time to return home tonight, could go to her, tell her, _show_ her precisely how much she meant … But would it do any good, really. Whether separated from him by a hundreds of miles or by only the inch between her lips and his throat, sometimes it seemed to Edmund that she had … such a talent for staying out of reach.

He set his jaw.

“...Very well. Our business remains unchanged. Though you’re mistaken, sir. Anna has no pets.”

“No? I’d say she has at least two.”

He didn’t have time to decipher Simcoe’s words or the sly look that accompanied them before the Ranger set off once more, leaving Edmund little choice but to follow.

“Someplace more peaceable” turned out to be a pleasingly geometric little park near enough Independence Hall that the steeple peeked over the trees. Rather too many citizens still saw fit to make a public playground of the place, all chattering and cheering and carrying on, but it was a madhouse more on the order of Bellevue than Bedlam, at least. Subdued enough that they could find a table and Edmund could turn all his attention to reading the papers Simcoe presented him with once they’d sat.

His lips pressed together as he read. He took a deep breath through the nose and released it, feeling no surprise but rather more melancholy than he might have anticipated. Not because the news pained him personally, but because of how it must surely have pained her.

With a flick of the wrist, he dropped the files back onto the table. Leaned back in his uncomfortable metal chair and looked Simcoe in the eye. From the moment they’d met at the station, the Ranger’s expression had hardly wavered from that expectant gaze and that quirk of the lips that seemed to shift from half-smile to half-smirk with every change of the light.

Not an _unpleasant_ expression, exactly. Indeed, Simcoe himself gave no indication of being a particularly _unpleasant_ man. Perfectly polite, after all, admirable posture, sophisticated diction, his worst crime thus far perhaps a tendency to be a bit _vague_ … And heavens knew Edmund of all people had been called “odd” often enough not to toss about the term lightly. Still, there was something about that quirk of the Ranger’s mouth that made Edmund return his expression with one of utter impassiveness, determined not to reveal a thing.

“So Selah Strong is dead. I can’t see how that portends anything but good fortune for Anna.”

“Selah dead, yes. His legacy? Quite another matter. Not to mention his confederates. I gather you’ve not been on this side of the Atlantic long, but I’m curious, Hewlett—in your practice of the law, have you ever happened across mention of the Culper Ring?”

Edmund’s silence seemed answer enough. Long legs unfolded, crossing leisurely at the ankle, as Simcoe leaned back in his chair. With his hands clasped on the tabletop, he would have appeared utterly relaxed but for the unwavering focus of his eyes.

“Revolutionaries, they call themselves. _Anarchists_ would better suit. A group of hackers and information specialists affiliated with anti-government extremists hiding behind a veil of social activism and progressive politics. But nothing more than dangerous criminals in the eyes of the law.”

Edmund’s eyebrows felt in danger of soaring above his hairline. “You believe Selah Strong was a … treasonous ‘hacker.’”

“Why, Mr. Hewlett. You sound unconvinced.”

In the scant hushed words she’d ever shared about him, Anna had painted a picture of her husband as a man of strong passions but simple pleasures, simple talents, simple ambitions in life. Edmund’s fingers tapped out a little arpeggio on the table. “...The man sold _tea_.”

“And Capone sold second-hand furniture, according to his business card, at least. At any rate, Selah? No, I believe Selah was an ordinary man in over his head who happened to become involved with treasonous hackers. He was quite the perennial protester in his youth, our Mr. Strong. And the evidence suggests that he never entirely disavowed his youthful principles, nor abandoned his youthful friends.”

A moment of silence as a gossipy group of ladies passed by, but when Simcoe spoke again, his gaze was level and his voice softer than ever. “I’ve been hunting the Culpers a long time, Mr. Hewlett. Far too long, with too little reward.”

“Bit of a passion project for you?”

Judging by the way Simcoe’s half-smile twitched toward a scowl, Edmund’s opinion on the matter hadn’t been _quite_ well enough disguised.

“You could say that. And if Selah is the key to the Ring, then alive or dead, I’ll make whatever use of him I must. No matter the collateral damage. No matter whom I may need to exploit along the way.” The Ranger perked up in an exaggerated show of having just thought of something. “Mrs. Strong is quite striking, isn’t she? A formidable woman, and no stranger to radical politics herself, from what I understand. I imagine a wife must know her husband’s secrets better than anyone.”

_SCRITCH—_

The legs of Edmund’s chair scraped horribly against the pavement as he leapt to his feet. Simcoe remained slouched at ease, suddenly beaming.

“There! See? I _knew_ she had another pet.”

“You _dare_ —” He felt his hand trembling; he took a breath to still it. “You _dare_ summon me all this way simply to _threaten_ my—my client—”

“No threats, Mr. Hewlett. We’re gentlemen, after all. Consider this simply a reminder from one man of business to another that those who wilfully choose not to be my allies, as Mrs. Strong already has, can hardly complain if I fail to make their welfare a priority.” Simcoe spread his hands and put on a sympathetic frown. “Of course, I have no _wish_ to cause her harm. Nor to expose whatever skeletons may lie in her closet. But even if I do not, there’s the matter of the Culpers. The Strongs both ran in revolutionary circles back in their day. What would it do to Mrs. Strong’s fortunes, I wonder, to have her husband’s name—perhaps even her own name—linked to such _notorious_ enemies of the state?”

“Don’t be _ridiculous_. Anna. A criminal. No one who’s ever met her could believe that.”

“You must know her rather well.”

He thought of her spirited laugh and her guarded, fathomless eyes. He thought of the way she could be teasing him one moment only to fall suddenly silent the next, lost in thoughts of a life he’d never been a part of. “Yes. I daresay I do.”

“ _I_ don’t. Not yet. I suppose that’s why I have rather a different impression than you.” He didn’t care for the wistful note in Simcoe’s voice; didn’t care at _all_ for the soft way Simcoe smiled to himself as he leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table. “Well then, nothing to worry about, I suppose. Since she’s so _universally_ loved. Innocent until proven guilty, after all, and I’m sure you know better than I how good her chances are of making it all the way through a trial with her reputation unscathed.”

Edmund did know. Had been a lawyer long enough to see precisely what toll the long and weary road a trial could take on its defendants, guilty or not. Drag a person’s name through the mud long enough and you wind up with stains even acquittal can’t wash out. And the more he thought about the way Mary had turned cold at the mere mention of Anna’s name … Anna’s obvious dislike for Richard, and his for her … And that remark by De Young, so quick he’d scarcely credited it at the time: _Is it such a surprise, with her reputation—_

“...What precisely do you want from me,” he murmured, but Simcoe was no longer looking at him. Pale eyes snapped to a point somewhere down the path beyond Edmund’s shoulder, and all of a sudden, the Ranger stood, reaching out a hand to stop someone striding by.

“Hello. Akinbode. That’s where I know you from. You’re Akinbode’s friend. You looked so familiar, but I wasn’t sure.”

The passerby in question was a doe-eyed young lady with a white tignon wrapped around her hair and dark skin that distinctly paled at the sight of her confronter. Somehow, that no longer surprised Edmund. What did surprise him was how unaccountably _familiar_ the lady seemed, though surely there was no reason that should have been the case.

“Y-yeah. Yeah, I remember you too, Mr. Simcoe.” The way she extricated her elbow from Simcoe’s touch sickened Edmund. It was the subtle shifting away of a woman far too used to enduring men’s hands.

“A friend of yours, sir?” he said coolly, if only in the hope that a reminder of his presence might be enough to discourage the Ranger from continuing to be more … _familiar_ than the lady seemed comfortable with. They both glanced at him then. Simcoe’s gaze soon flicked away.

The lady’s, oddly enough, did not.

“A friend of a friend. Akinbode did mention you’d moved here. Tell me, do you miss Long Island?”

For a moment, the woman did not answer. She was too busy _staring_ very rudely at Edmund, who blinked back at her uselessly for want of knowing what else to do. Her eyes wide, her brows knitted, her mouth slightly ajar—what, was she … asking for rescue? Was she offended? Did he have something on his face?

Somehow she managed to drag her gaze back to Simcoe. “No. No, I’m happy here. Sorry, I—I gotta run.”

“A pleasure seeing you,” Simcoe called airily as the poor girl spun around and fled in the same direction she’d come from. She spared Edmund one more baffling look over her shoulder on her way.

With all the languid grace of a melting candle, Simcoe sank back into his seat.

“What do I want from you, Mr. Hewlett?”

He spoke as though the interruption had never occurred.

“Nothing very difficult for you to obtain or damaging for you to part with. Compensation, for my expenses in pursuit of the Culpers. Any other assistance I might require you to provide. But my main interest is _information_ —both personal information about Selah, his old acquaintances, as well as records I lack the authority to access. The sort of information I would have been glad to obtain from Mrs. Strong herself, had she not been so eager to put an end to the matter. As her legal counsel and … friend, I would think you well positioned to serve as a substitute.”

“You’re asking me to break the _law_ ,” he huffed, but Simcoe only hummed.

“Not necessarily. Your methods are your own, and you seem a … punctilious sort. I’m certain you can find _some_ way to keep matters above the board. All I ask are results. And in return: guaranteed protection for Mrs. Strong! No matter what I uncover about her husband or, indeed, about her, none of it need come to light. The _Culpers_ are my object. As long as I have them, I can easily let anyone else’s involvement slide.

“So. Do we have an understanding?” When Simcoe smiled, his lips moved and his cheeks stretched, but his eyes remained round and piercing. Edmund dropped his gaze to his hands, clasped tight on the back of his chair. “I do hope so. I’m growing rather fond of Mrs. Strong.”

Legal? Perhaps. If he were careful about what he shared and how he came by it. Yet all this talk of subterfuge, of skulduggery, of _spying_ on her, practically—that simply was not _him_ , that was not who he _was_. He was a beacon of authority by virtue of his profession, and he bore the burden of that authority. And Anna...

...could be in such danger if he turned away now. If he had it within his power to protect her, no matter by what means, did he not bear the burden of _that_ authority as well?

“...Some time to consider,” he heard himself say at last. He let out a resigned breath at the scrape of Simcoe’s chair.

“Of course. You have my number. But don’t wait too long.”

With the sun behind the Ranger’s head, Edmund could see little more of his face than that grin. The thought of this man ever turning such sharp teeth on Anna made his eyes narrow. When they shook hands, each seemed on a mission to crush the other’s fingers first.

“A pleasure meeting you, Mr. Hewlett.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, sir.”

The bones of his knuckles ground as Simcoe tightened his grip. “I look forward to your call,” the Ranger added innocently, and it was all Edmund could do not to snap.

He settled for snatching up his briefcase with a decided air of disdain and struck off down the path without bothering to consider his direction. Head bowed and aching hand flexing at his side, he didn’t even notice the passerby walking in the opposite direction until their shoulders collided.

“Oh—terribly sorry.” Distractedly, he raised a hand in appeasement. When he tried to circumnavigate the other, however, a thud to the center of his chest knocked him back.

“Dude! You ruined my jersey!”

Edmund gaped down at the hand splayed over the front of his jumper. A man’s hand, rough-knuckled, attached to a tattooed arm further attached to a young man who, _apparently,_ had quite some _nerve_.

Four things Edmund noticed in rapid succession. The first: that the fellow was wearing one of those accursed green sports shirts that seemed the uniform of half of Philadelphia at the moment. The second: that he was accompanied by two other young men likewise wearing similar shirts and similarly red-faced scowls. The third: that even at arm’s length, the lot of them stank so distinctly of beer that Edmund couldn’t help but flinch.

And, of course, the fourth: that the offended man’s shirt now bore a large, dark stain over the front, courtesy of Edmund’s shoulder and the now-empty cup in the man’s free hand.

“Oh.” It would be quite nice if the man would remove his hand, please. “Yes, of course, forgive me. I can give you something for the dry cleaning—”

“I can’t take this to the _cleaners_.” The boy—hardly more than a child, really, probably not even out of university—goggled at Edmund as though he were an idiot. “This is a genuine 1991 Jerome Brown, the same one he wore to the Pro Bowl, I paid like two hundred dollars for it! I’m not gonna risk someone fucking it up even more!”

The two friends nodded as though this were common knowledge, and sage advice to boot. Edmund’s mouth opened, then closed. Such was his desperation that he cast a glance over his shoulder for aid.

Simcoe stood in the distance, watching. When Edmund caught his eye, he patted his green jacket, held up his hands, and helpfully strolled away.

At a loss, Edmund spread his hands. “...I don’t know what any of those words _mean_.”

The hand fisted in his jumper, dragging him forward a step before Edmund managed to twist away. “They mean you owe me like one-fifty, man, or else—”

“Don’t be _absurd_ , young man. Allow me to recommend a reputable launderer, and I think you’ll find—”

“Don’t call me _young man_ , dude, and don’t you dare try an’ rip me off here, I’m not stupid, this jersey—”

“For God’s _sake_ , it’s a bloody _shirt!_ Look, it’s already got sweat stains under the arms!” He was shouting. Was he shouting? Oh, bugger it all, what did it _matter_ , he deserved to shout after this wretched wreck of a day, just as he deserved to be able to rake his fingers through his hair without caring about the fact that it tended to make him look like a startled sparrow when mussed. “I _apologize_ for the inconvenience, but honestly, if the state of one garment is your greatest concern in life, I _envy_ you, truly, I cannot imagine how charmed an existence one must lead to feel that this is a disaster grievous enough to warrant extorting total strangers for the sake of _a bloody ridiculous tribalistic infatuation with organized spor—_ ”

Edmund never remembered falling.

One moment he was gesturing perhaps a _bit_ emphatically toward yonder sweat stains—

— _the cannons of Bucephalus’s front legs slam into the jump, and the last thing Edmund remembers is that swooping feeling in his stomach as horse and rider alike tumble forward—_

—and the next, he found himself sprawled on arse and elbows with pain blooming across one cheekbone, three furious faces looking down at him, and the too-familiar taste of copper in his mouth.

“You wanna say that again?” The young man was flexing his hand, the knuckles visibly chafed. Dazedly, Edmund raised a hand to his cheek. The touch of his fingers seemed oddly far away.

“...I honestly can’t recall what I was saying,” he confessed. Attempting to sit up further made a nauseating wave of pain radiate through his sinuses, so he slid all the way down instead. “Was, was there, ah, a particular part you wished to hear?”

“Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you—” said the boy, beginning to sound more baffled than cross, but before Edmund had time to quantify an answer to _that_ , there came a shout.

“Hey! What are you _doing_ , leave him alone!”

He must’ve hit his head on the way down. That was the only explanation. As the boys glanced away, he let himself lean all the way back, closing his eyes to try and shut out the nausea and pain.

The slap of boots on pavement, then that voice again, and yes, he was _definitely_ hallucinating. “I’ve been waiting eons for a chance to test this mace out, boys. Go on, give me an excuse.”

“Okay, lady, like you’d really— _shit!_ ”

A spraying sound, then a flurry of footsteps as she did, apparently, really. A new voice, vaguely familiar, joined the fray.

“Wow, look at them scamper. Nice job.”

“Oh god—Abby, is he…”

Ah, so his hallucinations were talking to one another now. That was a comforting thought. At least one of them seemed fond of him, though, and he held to that pleasant notion as footsteps approached and he felt someone drop down at his side. At last, he cracked open one eye.

Edmund’s entire face throbbed. He could taste blood on his lip, and he feared he may have skinned his elbow when he fell, to judge by the way it stung. Yet his face bloomed into a smile so broad it would’ve hurt even if he’d not just been punched.

“Hello,” he whispered breathlessly. It was all he could think to say.

The sun was in Anna’s hair. It made a halo of the strands falling around her face as she leaned over him, looking down with eyes huge and rimmed with red.

“Hi,” she whispered back. Her face was stricken, her voice strangled and quite the loveliest thing he’d ever heard. She swallowed. “Making friends?”

This time, when he tried to sit up, there was one hand supporting his shoulders and another catching him around the ribs, holding him up. He rested half his weight on his elbow, half in her hands, and couldn’t help but think that if he was indeed suffering brain damage, there could be no finer place to do so than in Anna Strong’s arms.

“I was just about to invite them round for tea. Are you, ah. Are you really you?”

Already she’d looked near to tears, but now her eyes took on an edge of concern, which was rather a nice touch on the possible concussion’s part. “Did you hit your head?”

Edmund considered that. His face hurt, certainly. His head, on the other hand, honestly felt fine. “Not that I recall? No, no, I’m rather certain I didn’t. Um, but, what I mean is, are _you_ quite certain you’re _real?”_

With her face so close, he had an excellent view of the precise moment at which concern turned to exasperation. Her lips thinned. She lifted the hand from his ribs and, with no ceremony whatsoever, poked the injured side of his face.

“Ow!”

“Real enough for you?”

Oh, he was a lost cause, wasn’t he. Otherwise, why would he answer that not with anger, but with a bright and genuine laugh.

Her lips were still pursed, but he knew too well by now the way they twitched when she wanted to smile despite herself. Yet her eyes remained sad. The same hand that had prodded him now cupped his cheek with such gentleness that it didn’t hurt at all. Not even when he turned his head just enough that his lips grazed the base of her thumb.

Her breath caught. He cursed himself as she snatched her hand away.

“Edmund.”

His heart was a very impractical organ. It seemed to suffer a momentary loss of function every time she said his name. “Anna?”

There were moments, sometimes, that he dreaded. Moments when her face shuttered. When her shoulders grew stiff, and her eyes changed from the entrancing darkness of a night sky to wells promising water deep and cold. There was a speck of blood at the base of her thumb that vanished as her hand curled into a fist. Her arm remained around his shoulders and her face remained not twelve inches from his, yet suddenly, Anna seemed terribly far away.

“Edmund,” she repeated, and his heart did not stumble. It didn’t dare do anything while pinned under such a glare. “Why are you here, and what the _hell_ do you think you’re doing with _John Simcoe.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Public apology to Abe fans for calling him a ferret. I actually like ferrets, though, and it's not Jamie Bell's fault that he reminds me of one. Public apology to Philadelphians for, well, everything. I’ve never visited your fair city. Please blame all stereotypes & inaccuracies on my friend who, when asked to describe “the essence” of Philly, simply sent me [this article](http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5098407) and would say no more.
> 
> Credits this time include a couple literary refs, with Anna alluding to Borges's "The Garden of Forking Paths" and Edmund quoting a couple lines of Longfellow's _Tales of a Wayside Inn_. Edmund also quotes himself from S1E1 regarding being a beacon of authority, and Simcoe and Abigail paraphrase a bit of their conversation from S2E1.


	14. Willow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated M for characters being Morons, and also for a little more blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must’ve rewritten the bulk of this chapter five times, and at times I despaired of it entirely ... but at long last, here it is. Hope it’s worth the wait. Much love this time around to hey-there-bret’s [truly perfect gifset for chapter 13](http://hey-there-bret.tumblr.com/post/140946651616/calamity-bean-broken-lightsaber-there-had) and silveredplanet’s [absolutely beautiful photoset](http://calamity-bean.tumblr.com/post/141178845647/silveredplanets-edmund-thought-of-planets-and) of the museum arc—y’all are amazing!!

“You have a, ah. An exceptionally lovely home, Miss Abigail,” said Edmund, and did his best to hide a wince behind the most unflappable decorum that a boarding-school education could instill in a human being. Etiquette truly was underrated as a means of defense. If ever he found himself cast into a lion pit, he had a morbid suspicion that he’d adopt much the same strategy he did now: smile affixed, hands folded in his lap, sitting prim and proper on the very edge of his seat as he awaited an opportunity to flee.

Though surely no pit of lions could pose more danger than the company he kept now.

“I must thank you again for your hospitality. And apologize for, um, for bleeding on your hand towel. But I imagine a bit of 3 percent peroxide will— _ah!”_

Anna. Darling Anna. Sweet and caring Anna, who had just pressed a horribly stinging cloth to the cut on his cheekbone none too gently, glared at him from beneath her lashes.

“Hold still.”

“I _am_ still. I am granite, Anna, I am a statue in the Gorgon’s garden, and if you would simply be more _careful_ , I—”

From her place by the kitchen counter, their hostess cleared her throat.

“Uh, Mr. Hewlett? For your own sake? Stop talking.”

Miss Abigail’s flat consisted of that curious combination of kitsch and coziness that in polite terms was typically dubbed “quaint.” It was also more than a touch cramped. The occupants formed a tense isosceles amidst the confines of the sitting room-cum-kitchenette. By the stove stood Miss Abigail herself, arms folded and face a mask of long-suffering resignation. At the table sat her son, a stick-limbed boy with eyes the size of saucers. Apparently nobody had ever instructed the child that it was rude to stare, because even as Cicero spooned macaroni into his mouth, his gaze remained fixed on Edmund.

And the third point of the triangle: the place where the sofa formed an L with the armchair. He sat on the sofa, Anna in the chair. Near enough to tend to his wounds, but only just—as though she’d calculated to the millimeter how close she needed to sit and had there drawn a line that could not be breached, no more than he could breach the dark sweep of her eyelashes and catch her stubbornly lowered eyes.

She pressed a plaster hard over his cut just as the kettle began to hum. Before he could say a word, she was striding into the kitchen past Abigail, who was moving in the opposite direction with a mug.

“Oh—that’s not necessary, thank you,” he demurred to the offered drink. It smelled suspiciously herbal.

“It’s willow. For the pain. It’ll help you feel better, till she kills you, at least.”

Anna’s back was turned toward them as she washed her hands. He couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t contradict.

He accepted the tea.

Abigail looked to the kitchen, and Anna, who refused to meet his eyes while sitting mere feet away, seemed to feel the other woman’s gaze from all the way across the room. He hated the intimacy of the glance they shared—how it seemed more meaningful than anything he could manage in a thousand words—and hated himself for allowing it to make him feel so small.

Abigail turned toward her son. “Hey Cicero, you want some ice cream? I was thinkin’ we could stop at that place around the corner.”

Little Cicero, chewing open-mouthed, continued to stare. “Nah, I’m okay.”

“Cicero. _You want some ice cream_.”

Miss Abigail, it seemed, was a master of the tone of motherly command. Edmund found himself sympathizing with the way Cicero scampered to obey.

Then he and Anna were alone.

Edmund had never been the sort to get in trouble, as a boy. Once or twice for sneaking out to watch the stars, certainly; a few times more for tracking in mud on his riding in boots; and a few memorable occasions in school when he’d gotten into overzealous debate with teachers who were, in his defense, _wrong_. This, he supposed, must have been what it felt like to be one of those boys constantly called to the headmaster’s office.

Moments passed in silence. He cleared his throat.

“I must say, this isn’t _quite_ the first impression I’d hoped to make on your friend. Um, bleeding all over her towels and whatnot. She won’t think less of me for it, I hope? I suppose it could be worse—at the very least, this isn’t _quite_ as interesting as my chance encounter with your friend at the museum, the ah, _memorable_ Mr. Brewster … but …”

Nothing. Her head remained lowered, her shoulders hunched taut as the curve of a bow. As quietly as he could, he set his tea down on the coffee table.

“My dear—”

“Why do you call me that?”

Never mind going off the rails; his train of thought hadn’t even gathered steam.

“Call you—? What, call you ‘dear’?” The sobriquet seemed so natural he’d never stopped to question it. “I don’t—I don’t know. It’s just something I _say_ , I suppose, to women I consider friends. You, and—Mary Woodhull, for example. You never … seemed to mind.”

There was a moment, then, when her stance shifted just slightly. He dared to hope that she would turn around and assure him that no, she didn’t mind at all.

Of course, as Epictetus could have told him, it was a fool who put too much on a hope.

“Am I a dog, Edmund?”

_“Pardon?”_

“A dog. A dog that’s run away from home, so you go around town putting ‘missing’ posters on all the lampposts, and, and drive around the neighborhood shouting my name,” she bit out, and Edmund scoffed.

“Really, Anna, there’s no call for histrionics.”

“Am I a child, then? Can’t trust me on my own for two seconds, like I can’t take care of myself, like I need _minding_ —”

“That is _not_ —” Words were inadequate; he braced one hand against his temple and waved the other sharply through the air. “You _vanished!_ You said you would be there, but you were _gone_ , and I had no idea—”

“I left you a note.”

“A bloody useless note—”

“I didn’t _have_ to leave you _anything_.”

“No, no, of course you didn’t, because heaven forefend you take _my_ feelings into account, heaven forefend I wish to have the _faintest_ idea where you’ve—”

“Do I _belong_ to you,” she growled, and his teeth clicked shut. His jaw worked back and forth.

“… _No_.”

“Then stop acting like it.”

At last, Anna turned. Her gaze, however, remained on the floor, and the softness of her voice put him in mind of his mother’s reaction on the rare occasions he’d gotten bad marks in school. “I can’t believe you followed me.”

“Well … To be entirely accurate, I did not _follow_ you. I simply—”

“I can’t believe you took it upon yourself to travel hundreds of miles to meet up with the sociopath I hired to find Selah so that the two of you could chat about my private business behind my back. Is that accurate enough.”

Perhaps it was a mercy she wasn’t looking at him, for he wasn’t proud of the way he cringed.

“More … precise, I think, than accurate, but…” Though he’d never been much for manual labor, her expression suggested he was, in fact, doing an excellent job of digging his own grave. He held up a hand. “…If I … overstepped. It was only because I had your best interests at heart.”

“Key word right there, Edmund. My interests. _Mine_.”

“But I could _help_ you, Anna. This is precisely the sort of situation I’m far better equipped to handle than you are, there’s no shame in admitting that. You must’ve known I could help—that I’d _want_ to help, you should have known that from the beginning. You should have—you are—why is it that you are always so _resistant_ to being _helped_ , I cannot for the life of me understand—”

“Can’t _you_ understand that that’s not the _point_ —”

“—why you think it acceptable to depart so suddenly and then pretend that _I_ am somehow at fault for being—”

“Stop it! For god’s sake, Edmund! I swear I am going to throw this fucking kettle at your head if you don’t just _stop!”_

Not until that moment, with the creases in her brow deepened by the kitchen’s yellow light and the shadows dark beneath her eyes, did he notice how exhausted she looked. One hand tangled in her hair as she sank down in the chair where Cicero had sat minutes before.

“Are you even listening to yourself? Do you have any idea how ludicrously patronizing you sound? Because you sound like an asshole right now, a, a self-centered, overbearing asshole who can’t grasp the concept that not everything in the world needs to involve _him_. If I’d wanted your help, I would’ve asked for it. I grew up with a father who was best friends with _Dick Woodhull_ , for fuck’s sake. If there’s one thing I do not ever need more of in my life, it’s self-righteous, paternalistic men.”

With every word, she sank deeper and deeper into the bow of her shoulders and the soft, woolen folds of that voluminous jumper she was so fond of—the one with the coffee stains on the sleeve, the one that always smelled faintly tea and cardamom and cloves. In his mind, Anna Strong had always been a stark and indomitable presence. She was a fixed point and an unyielding line, a bold stroke of red through a misspelled word; as impossible to erase or ignore as ink spilled across paper of spotless white.

Now, he watched as her hair tumbled across her face and scattered those bold lines into a collection of crumpled threads.

“What I _need_ …” she was saying, voice an urgent whisper. “All I need from you, Edmund, is for you to…”

The end of her sentence hung in the air between them with a presence as vital yet ungraspable as the air itself. As the silence stretched, he thought he might suffocate from the lack of it. One more glance his way, then she shook her head and lowered her face into her elbows.

Utterly closed out by that single gesture, Edmund scowled down at the russet water cooling in his mug. The bits of detritus floating at the bottom did nothing to make it more appetizing. Willow, Miss Abigail had said. For the pain.

Well. His cheek ached. His jaw ached. His lip stung where he’d bit it on the way down, a little nick at the corner deep enough to bleed but hopefully not to swell, and he fancied he’d be the talk of the office come Monday, wouldn’t he, swanning into Whitehall looking like he’d left half his face on the pavement. There’d not been such a fine chance for gossip at his expense since the Coffee Incident.

Fascinating, wasn’t it, the amount of trouble he seemed to attract when Anna was involved.

But there was something worse than the insults, worse than the bruises, worse than the look on her face like he’d so profoundly failed a test he hadn’t even known he was taking. Far more painful than any of that was how, even now, she could act as though he were … no one to her. Someone with no place whatsoever in her life.

No tea in the world could soothe that sting.

“A simple thank-you would have sufficed,” he heard himself say. No more than a mutter, but the way her head lifted said she’d heard it, too. Face still pressed deep enough into the curve of her arm to hide her mouth, she stared at him with no expression he could read.

“I understand you’re going through some hardship at the moment, and yes, very well, I’m an overbearing arse and all that rot. But you might stand to show the _slightest_ appreciation of what I’ve done for you.”

She said nothing, but her eyes narrowed. Though his hands were still folded in his lap, knuckles showed white.

“Do you have any idea how worried I was? Do you have any idea what Simcoe and I discussed, what he plans for you, what he _wanted_ from me? The man is mad, Anna, mad and ruthless and very much the sort I would rather have nothing to do with, but for _you_ , I would—” His eyes scrunched shut, and shook his head to dash the thought away. “…And I would thank you, by the by, not to speak so ill of my friends. Richard has his faults, as all people do, but you’ll notice I don’t feel the need to deride your friends for theirs.”

Anna’s head had lifted all the way from her arm. Her eyes were iron, but so were his, and he held his chin high as he returned her glare. And when she stood, her jumper slipping off one shoulder to reveal a prominent clavicle and the black strap of a brassiere, he seized all the advantage a few inches of height could grant him by standing as well.

Her hair was tumbling loose. It floated around her face like a mane as she padded toward him, and with her bare soles soft on the carpet, it gave her approach the air of a predator’s stalk. Edmund held his ground as she came alongside the coffee table, but he didn’t doubt for one moment she could heard the pounding of his heart.

One more step, and he’d have to yield. He’d have no choice but to collapse backward onto the sofa and let her loom over him with her thighs on either side of his knees. Alternatively: _He_ could move instead. Yes; go on the attack, press forward, let his chest push into hers, let the coffee table catch her by her Achilles heels, though he would never, of course, let her fall. He could tangle one hand in the wool at her waist to catch her and brush the other along her cheek the way he might comfort a skittish horse. Anything to soften the snarl currently twisting her lips.

Never had Edmund been a betting man, but he’d wager his life she tasted precisely the way her sweater smelled. Like cardamom and cloves.

Her feet stopped. His did not move. There was thunder in her eyes, and he was struck by the mad impulse to kiss her, just to see whether, afterward, she would look at him with starlight instead.

Anna lifted her hand.

And Edmund flinched, gasping out a tiny breath, as her thumb brushed against the cut at the corner of his mouth.

“Your lip is bleeding again.” Her thumb slid across his lower lip, and he dared not even breathe. Yet for all that her hand was gentle, her voice was flat and hard. “Try not to get any on Abby’s towels—you seem a hell of a lot more concerned with them than with the fact that my husband’s _dead_.”

Her hand dropped, and his stomach dropped with it as he realized that he’d been so caught up in, well, in her—first in the thrill of seeing her, then in the frustration of fighting her—that he’d forgotten to even acknowledge her loss.

“Oh,” he breathed, but she was already stepping back. “Anna … My dear, I—”

“Don’t call me that.” No sooner had she said it than she appeared embarrassed by how quickly she’d spoken; but she didn’t take it back. Her arms folded over her chest as she turned away. “…Go fix your face.”

The trouble with never being in trouble—as Edmund reflected alone in the washroom, splashing his face with water so cold it left his skin tingling—was that situations like this always felt so … so utterly _senseless_. Literally lacking in sense. As though the scant space of Abigail’s home were divided into two separate universes where not even the same rules of physics applied, much less the same laws of logic, and he and Anna each were trapped in a different one. He spat pink-tinged water into the sink and had just turned off the faucet when he heard someone opening the front door of the flat.

“Ookay, encouragingly quiet in here.” He could just hear Miss Abigail’s voice. “Got it all out of your system, then? Issue resolved, everybody’s … friends … Oh.”

He wished he knew what expression Anna was wearing to provoke such a change or tone. Much less for the next words out of Abigail’s mouth to be telling her son to go to his room.

“Shit. Shit, hon, I got the timing all wrong, didn’t I? We came back too soon.”

“How were you trying to time it?” Anna’s voice, deeper and richer than Abigail’s. And infinitely more weary.

“Long enough for you two to fight it out … Not so long that we’d walk in on y’all christening my couch.” Edmund’s eyes closed. Hands braced on the sink, he dropped his forehead to the cold mirror glass and was manfully resisting the urge to dash his idiot brains out against it when Abigail spoke again. “What? That’s how fights usually went, when you were with Abe.”

His eyes opened. He thought of Mary’s expression the one time he’d asked her about Anna and remembered running into Abe at the tea shop so long ago, remembered how flushed the young man had been, how disheveled. In the mirror, his reflection’s lips pressed into a line.

The ladies were standing in the kitchen when he emerged, their shoulders forming a wall. Both heads turned in unison. He kept his chin high and managed a wobbly little bow.

“Miss Abigail, my apologies—and my thanks—once again. It sincerely has been a pleasure meeting you.” Doe eyes crinkled as Abigail’s face twisted with a pity he could hardly stand.

“Yeeeah, same to you, dude. You, uh, headin’ out?”

“I … think that would be best.” If there had ever been any hope that Anna would object to that, it died when she turned her face away. “Ah. Anna. May I…”

_Look at me. Please. Tell me we can make this right._

“What?” she said at last. Pleading, almost, with the wall. “What do you want?”

God in heaven. A thousand things:

To beg her to forgive him, and yet, at the same time, to narrate an entire PowerPoint detailing all the ways in which she was in the wrong;

To walk backwards through time until his feet reached that moment outside the shop when her lips had nearly touched his neck, so that he could say something more useful this time and avert everything that had happened since;

To waste reams of paper trying to articulate all the feelings cluttering his head, and to demonstrate them using no words at all.

He wanted Abigail to leave again, not merely avert her gaze. He wanted to smooth the sagging neckline of Anna’s jumper further down her shoulder so that he could slide his hand over bare skin when he leaned down to her. More than anything, however, he wanted her to stop being ridiculous and simply go _home_ with him, back to Setauket, where things made sense.

Anna’s fingers were plucking at her bra strap the same way they did at her sleeve when she was fretting. Hands, he recalled suddenly. That had been his trouble with the mare, all those years ago. He’d developed a bad habit, in those days, of neglecting his leg and seat in favor of hanging on the reins. Sweet Bucephalus was too apt to let him get away with it, so his trainer had saddled him with a mount that would not.

It had not, of course, ended well.

“May I come by the shop soon?” he ventured at last. “Perhaps … next week?”

“I don’t know, Edmund. You seem to know what’s best for me; what do you think?”

Even Abigail lifted her eyebrows at Anna’s tone. His lips thinned.

“I think that, considering the premise of our dispute, you hardly have grounds to mock me for asking permission.”

There was a vicious sort of victory in her silence, but no comfort. A moment passed before she answered with the subtlest of nods.

There was an apology hiding somewhere in his throat, but he couldn’t seem to coax it out. It turned into a lump that lingered as he found himself wandering down an unfamiliar Philadelphia street. His mind unraveled back yet again to that horse and the sensation of falling and the merciless impact of the earth.

The sun was setting. He could return to 30th Street Station, he supposed, likely catch a train that would see him back to Setauket by midnight … So that he could muddle through a sleepless night, stagger into Whitehall the next morning, and suffer through an entire day of pretending nothing was amiss. God have mercy. Sore in every limb, his face throbbing, he truly did almost feel like a teenager again, stalking stiff and aching into the stables for his next lesson after his fall. His trainer had taken one look at his sullen face and told him that she’d not assigned a horse to him for the night. He could have his pick. Between two possibilities, at least.

He really had been a foolish boy, he reflected ruefully, letting the sunset lap at his shoes. It had been years before he understood the disappointment in his trainer’s eyes when he chose Bucephalus over the mare.

 

\---

 

There were a thousand things Anna did not need in her life, and pretty damn high on the list was the look Abigail was giving her now.

“Oh, like you’d have done any different,” she snapped, though Abigail hadn’t said a word. That face was plenty eloquent enough on its own. It was a look like she knew something Anna was too dense to have figured out yet, and Anna had seen it before. She used to wear the same exact expression through Anna’s rants during the last days of her relationship with Abe.

“He couldn’t give me _one day_ to myself. One day, Abby. Was I supposed to be fine with that? Was I supposed to just let that slide? Sticking his nose in my business, going behind my back with _Simcoe_ , practically _stalking_ me? Oh, _thank_ you, Edmund, how did I ever survive my entire damn life without you.”

That sickness in the hollow of her chest was gnawing at her, leaking acid into her blood. She could feel it burning through her as she pulled away from Abigail and began to pace. It made her fingertips tingle with the same dry, autumnal warmth as the skin of his lips.

She wanted to scrape her skin off till she never felt such a sensation again.

“If he’d just—I swear, that man has never been wrong in his life. Abigail, if you had heard the things he said!”

“Hey, I’m not fighting you,” said Abby, in much the same tone she used to tell Cicero to eat his vegetables. “So your man needs a lesson in boundaries. No argument there. It’s just … less than ideal, is all I’m saying. To walk away from a fight with open wounds.”

Everything about Anna felt like an open wound. She tried to remember the last time she hadn’t felt that way. “…He’s not my man.”

“Your friend, your nemesis, your _whatever_. I’ve given up keeping track. Look, Anna, you’re the sister I never had, but you’re also the reason lifeguards tell people not to try and help someone who’s drowning. I’m already in this mess too deep. Do _not_ drag me down with you any farther.”

At the look on her face, Anna gave a guilty sigh.

“…Sorry. And. Thank you, for everything. But this is … I think it’s for the best, really. I’ve led him on too long as it is.” Her gaze fell to the coffee table. More specifically, to the cup of tea that sat there untouched. “I just wish … If he’d just…”

She did not, on top of everything else, need this little pang that hit her every time she thought of blood at the corner his mouth.

“…One ‘sorry.’ _One_ apology. That would’ve been enough.”

And _enough_ was all she had time for where Edmund Hewlett was concerned, because he (and his mouth, and the unexpected softness of his body in her arms, all those sharp angles gentled by his unflattering red sweater) was nothing more than a distraction from all the things that she did, in fact, _need_. She needed to call Selah’s family. She needed to find Selah’s will. She needed to talk to the police, needed to get them in touch with Simcoe, needed to set up a … not a funeral, it didn’t seem accurate to call it a funeral when there was nothing to bury or burn, but a memorial of some sort. For once, she needed to do right by her husband in every way.

All night, the thousand things she needed to do piled up till she thought her lungs would collapse beneath the weight.

Morning brought light but no clarity, and when she awoke in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar skyline beyond the window, she found herself hit by a swoop of vertigo that melted within moments into an aching homesickness she’d never imagined herself capable of feeling for Setauket, where every inch of pavement seemed haunted for her. In 30th Street Station, she kept her head down, eyes on her hands. On the train, she claimed the most secluded seat and did not scan the aisles for a familiar face.

But it was not until she staggered up the narrow steps of her apartment building and through her front door that the weight of it all truly came crashing down.

Everywhere she looked, there was Selah. Half-hidden beneath her peacoat on the pegs behind the door hung a jacket he’d left there as though he expected to wear it the next day. The book left open facedown on the kitchen table was hers, but the chipped mug beside it was the sole survivor of the dish set Selah had bought for his first apartment. Even the row of potted plants perched in the windowsill made her flinch. Mint and rosemary, lemongrass and thyme—she grew little jars of them for cooking and for use in the shop, but only because Selah had started her on the habit.

In the bedroom, in the kitchen, in the men’s shirts pushed to one side of the closet and in the electric razor she found at the back of the bathroom drawer; crammed into every nook and cranny of her life, there was him, him, him—

And now, she no longer had any excuse to put off deciding what was to be _done_ with it all.

Nightfall found her splayed on the bathroom floor with her back propped against the cabinet. Her hair was an oil slick, her camisole going on three days of servitude and her jeans not much better. In her stomach: tea and little else. Arranged in an arc around her, like a castle’s curtain wall: a cacophony of dress shirts, gloves, combs, trinkets, books she’d never read, CDs that weren’t her taste, neckties he’d never liked wearing anyway, socks missing their mates. Her efforts to sort and organize had devolved into the world’s most miserable trip down memory lane, the road paved in mismatched socks.

In the center of it all lay that envelope. That … detestable square of manila forced into her hands by good ol’ Ranger Shark-Eyes back in New Jersey. Her heart gnawed at the thought of him elbow to elbow with Edmund, their heads bent together, talking about her as though—as though she were a piece of currency to be bartered, a scrap of meat to be devoured, as though they had _any right_ to leave their fingerprints all over her life. At this rate, there would be nothing left that belonged purely to her.

…She’d thought Edmund thought better of her than that.

She could sit here forever, she supposed. Let her worries grow on her like moss till she found herself rooted to the tile for good. That might be nice. It’d make for a fascinating obituary, at least. Some nice scientists could come along and study her, write a dissertation or two about her strange demise.

But that would be just one more pair of hands pawing over her existence, and the thought of an eccentric scientist excitedly explaining theorems to her bones made her heart ache. Besides—sick she might be, sick with a poison as endemic to her body as the blood that carried it through her veins, but Anna’s madness had never been the sort that paralyzed. No.

She was a warrior, and hers was the madness of a berserker, of breaking things before they could break her.

 

\---

 

Muscles coiling as her arm drew back, took aim, released. A moment later, a satisfying _plunk_ far out over the bay. Moonlight shimmered over ink as the ripples spread, and Anna wound up again, relishing the feeling of her skin tingling in the cold and her blood thudding in her ears and her bicep thrumming with so much potential and _life_. Not for nothing had “throws like a girl” never been an insult among her friends. Another throw, and a second stone, larger than the first, hit the water with a splash.

“Uh, do you mind?” intruded a voice to her left. Further down the footbridge, a couple of young women were attempting to have a romantic moment. Unfortunately for everyone involved, they’d had the temerity to attempt it mere yards from Anna’s incipient cathartic breakdown.

“Am I inconveniencing you? Am I getting in the way of your make-out session? No? Then piss off.”

Twin scowls in her direction. She found another rock and threw it with extra vigor, just on principle, before hefting her messenger bag onto her shoulder and striding down the path.

The spring’s first intrepid bullfrogs croaked down by the water as she made her way through the trees. All parts of a city wore different faces by day and by night, but there was no place in Setauket whose character changed quite so much as the park that bordered the bay. She loved it for that. A combination playground, jogging track, and lunch-hour retreat for the hoity-toity financial district by day, by night it became the haunt of lovers, pot dealers, depressed adults, mischievous teens, and third-shift employees trudging to work. Their paths skimmed close but never quite touched, so that she walked with the sensation of being one satellite among many, each of them following an orbit predetermined long ago.

There was a comfort in that—in yielding her feet to fate. So it was her feet she blamed for choosing to take the footbridge instead of the perimeter and the path to the left of the oak tree instead of to the right. Either set of choices would have led to the same place eventually. But only one carried her to a particular bend in the path where she found a particular streetlamp gilding a park bench in a circle of light.

Her feet stopped. In front of the bench knelt a man, smiling down at what appeared to be a bulbous bullfrog plopped innocently in the middle of the sidewalk. Beneath the bullfrog’s intermittent croaks, she could hear the man murmuring nonsense in soothing tones, because of course he was. What else would he possibly be doing on a Friday night.

She had been standing there for several moments before he looked up and, with a startled lurch, staggered to his feet.

The bullfrog, seizing its chance at freedom, hopped away. Anna’s voice came out as a croak in its stead.

“Communing with nature, Edmund?”

“Ah. Yes. Yes, I was … just getting to know _Rana catesbeiana_. Perhaps not the most aesthetically pleasing batrachomorph, but rather an impressive one, I’d say.” He motioned to the ground and only then seemed to notice that his friend had abandoned him. As a result, the gesture left him looking empty-handed and lost. “…I think they’re a very underrated amphibian.”

There was a bruise shadowing his cheekbone and a dark spot at the corner of his mouth. His gaze flicked to her messenger bag, then, cautiously, to her face.

She knew what she had to say. She had agonized over the words on the train until she had them just right, because she couldn’t bear the thought of a future spent dreading each ring of the bell above the shop door. The next time she turned and saw his shape in the doorway, she’d decided, she would do what had to be done.

_I’m so sorry. I don’t feel the same. I hope we can still be friends._

Anna heard herself speak.

“Would you help me with something? It’s—not very important. Nothing life or death. I just don’t want to do it alone.”

Near the ocean, the path gave way to a steep bank, slick with grass and curtained from the street by weeping willows and reeds whose feathery flags waved above her head. Anna held onto a handful of catkins as she skidded down on the sides of her shoes. Two steps behind, she could hear Edmund following with caution. She refused to consider what would happen if he slipped and knocked them both down to lie one atop the other in the grass.

At the water’s edge, the earth leveled out into just enough room to stand. She was already pulling her bag in front of herself and reaching for the clasp by the time he made it down.

“I’m so sorry about your husband.” The words sounded as though they’d fallen out before he’d even fully thought them. Standing there with a grimace on his face and a primly buttoned cardigan instead of his usual blazer, he looked _slightly_ less crumpled than she felt, but only slightly. “Forgive me. I—should have said as much from the start.”

Under normal circumstances, the thought of him giving a single damn about Selah would’ve made her laugh. As it was, was still good enough to gentle her tone.

“Liar.”

An adamant shake of his head.

“Truly. Not for _his_ sake, of course, I never claimed that. Yet I am … sorry. For, ah. For many things.”

They were separated by scarcely the length of an arm. Her eyes kept sliding toward his mouth.

“…What did the Woodhulls say about your face?”

“Are you implying, madam, that there’s something wrong with my face?”

That deathly serious tone never failed to tease a smile out of her. He returned the gesture tentatively before lifting a hand his cheek.

“I … declined to return to Whitehall today, actually. I only arrived back in town midmorning—I spent the night in this godforsaken rattrap of a hotel in Philadelphia, and there was a _roach_ , Anna, a roach in my room, scuttling across the wall as bold as anything, and when I smashed it with my shoe, do you think it had the common decency to die? The little monster came back with _friends_.” A sigh. “At any rate, I … didn’t feel up to work.”

His attention had drifted to the bag once more. She reached inside and drew out the first thing her fingers touched.

“This was Selah’s favorite mug. He had it even before we ever met—see the chip in the rim? I could never convince him to throw it out.” She turned the plain white china over in her hands. “He claimed it made the tea taste especially good.”

Then she drew her arm back, coiled every ounce of strength in her body, and threw it as far as she could over the bay.

Edmund’s startled “Oh!” stuttered out at the same moment she heard the mug go _plunk_. She was already reaching into the bag once more.

“Anna, what are you … This is … _Anna_ , you’re _littering_.”

“There are literally bodies in this bay, Edmund. Literal bodies. I guarantee it. They probably appreciate a gift every now and then.” She held up her next catch. “How do you think they feel about drinking flasks?”

“Apathetic, probably, given their state of decay?” She could feel him watching her as the flask joined the mug. Silence but for the plink in the water, the willows whispering among themselves as their catkins trailed over the foam. Then, Edmund’s sigh. “You’re quite certain you won’t regret this.”

“I can’t stand the sight of it, and it’s not worth the trouble to sell. None of this was worth anything to anyone but Selah. And Selah is in the sea.” She held the bag out to him. “Keep them coming.”

Flasks, combs, a pocketknife, a lighter; one after another, Edmund passed them to her, and she accepted each with infinite care that their fingers not brush. Sometimes she found herself recounting, as though from another life, what it was, where Selah had gotten it, why he’d liked it or hated it. Sometimes she threw without a word. Once or twice, she was so struck by the shape of the thing in her hand that she hesitated, heart aching, and nearly put it back in the bag. But after a moment, those, too, joined the others, until Anna was flushed and panting despite the chill. The burning of her lungs felt like victory, but still she felt that empty ache.

“That’s—the end of it, I do believe; there’s only—ah—” A rustling of paper behind her, and she knew. Anna closed her eyes. “Only an envelope left.”

Her hands folded into the sleeves of her jacket, arms crossing over her chest. “…There’s some papers inside. Leave those. But there’s also—could you—”

The snap of the brad as he opened it. She matched her breathing with the ebb and flow of the waves.

“…Is this blood?”

“Don’t worry. It’s older than my marriage.” She held her hand to the side and, after a moment, felt silk on her palm. The scrap of sky-blue scarf looked spun of silver in the moonlight; its bloodstained edges, dark as the water at her feet.

Sometimes she remembered that protest where she and Selah had first met and wondered how the world could have changed so profoundly in such a short time. They had all been immortal back then. Even Selah. Even Thomas and Sam. The blood on Selah’s face had looked unnaturally red in the glow of the police lights, as though it were fake, theatre blood or cheap paint, and perhaps that was why she couldn’t remember feeling particularly frightened at the sight of it. If she could go back in time to that night, would she even recognize the fearless girl who had wrapped her scarf around a handsome stranger’s brow?

“…Anna.” Edmund had a voice, Anna thought, that was made for night. The shadows turned the burr in his throat to velvet, and the moonlight gave his skin a glow as ethereal as the play of its beams on the waves. Perhaps that was why, even with the cut on his lip and the weariness etched into the slump of his shoulders, he seemed a bit more beautiful every time she looked at him. “You really don’t have to.”

Maybe he was right, for once. Yet it was only after reading the concern in his eyes that she found the courage to press the silk to her lips. When she opened her hand, it slid like oil through her fingers into the water below.

As the current pulled it away from shore, she waited for the hollow in her chest to fill. Waterlogged, the silk drifted down, was swallowed by dark. But the hollow remained. Maybe that was just something she’d have to live with.

“Well.” Anna took a shuddering breath. “…That’s that.” Even in the corner of her eye, she could sense the tension in Edmund’s stance.

“…Yes. Yes, I daresay that’s _something_ , at least.”

As she picked her way toward him across the rocks and sand, he offered the empty bag without being asked. Once it was in her hands, however, her mind went blank. Had she had a plan for the evening, past this point? And how could there be any place in it for Edmund. Her vision fixated on the cable pattern knitted into his sweater. The fibers wavered, then began to blur. Not until he made a noise like an alarmed bird did she realize she was beginning to cry.

“Oh—no no no, Anna, darling, that’s—um…” Anna’s breath tore free in a first gasping sob. His hands hovered wide around her shoulders, as though if he touched her, she might break. They retreated toward his shoulders as the struggle to control her breath sent her head lolling forward against his chest.

Her forehead rested in the dip of his collarbone; the bag slipped from her hand. The harder she tried to stay quiet, the more ragged her breath became, till her ribs were aching and her diaphragm shuddering and all she could do was try to lose herself in the coffee-and-book-leather scent of his cardigan.

Hands alighted tentatively on her shoulder blades. One patted her back uncertainly, the way she might console a distant cousin at the funeral of a relative she’d never met.

“Um. There, there. It’s not—it’s going to be quite all right, you know. Really. In fact, I think you’ve made loads of progress tonight! If you’ll just … ah …”

His hand continued patting even as his voice trailed off. Anna inhaled deeply, her breath humid and hot. She could taste salt on her lips and feel a sizable wet spot on Edmund’s shirtfront. All at once, he heaved out a sigh and shifted his hands to her upper arms. “Good God, I’m rubbish at this. Love, I don’t know what to say.”

Neither did she. Instead of trying to, she pressed her face deeper into his chest and let her hands slip around his sides.

“Sorry,” she whispered into the wool. Her hands rested on his shoulder blades, clutching loosely at his sweater. He finally let his hands drift along her back, and their bodies relaxed against one another, swaying slightly in the sea breeze.

“No, it’s—quite all right. Perfectly natural, after all, crying,” he murmured awkwardly. The slow slide of his hand up and down her spine made her want to purr. “Why, after my horse had to be put down, I was … a mess. You ought to have seen me then. Positively useless for weeks.”

“No, I mean … You’ll want to wash this sweater.” She lifted her face, which was doubtless the most attractive shade of puffy, tear-streaked red imaginable, and wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve. For no reason that she could quite define, she grinned. “I may or may not have gotten snot all over it.”

That was the reason, maybe: the completely predictable and unnecessarily charming way he couldn’t quite hide his cringe.

“ _Ah_. I … imagine I can find it in my heart to forgive you eventually.”

“Eventually, huh.”

“There must be a trial, of course. Witnesses, evidence, deliberation by a jury of your peers. They shall decide whether the harm done to the garment is grievous enough to constitute a crime.”

“Oh no. When can I expect a verdict?”

“I suppose I’ve let you sweat it out long enough. Not guilty. You’re free to go.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

Some people would probably say Edmund’s mouth was too broad. That was only because they’d never seen how much he could say just with the way a smile could start at one corner of it and slide so slowly across.

The bruise wasn’t so bad, really, now that she saw it up close. Considering his cheekbones, his face had probably done equal damage to his assailant’s hand. And the cut on his lip was only a thin line of scab. When she’d first seen him sprawled on the ground in Philadelphia, that little smear of red had been enough to make her heart stutter and her stomach swoop like she’d missed a step on the stairs. That fearless girl who’d pressed her scarf to Selah’s brow would have thought her very silly indeed, letting something so small make her so afraid.

She lay her cheek on his shoulder, forehead just touching his throat. “What were you doing out here so late?” she murmured as he first rested his cheek against the side of her head, then turned his face just enough that his nose pressed into her hair. She hadn’t washed it in, oh god, almost three days, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Besides harassing the wildlife, I mean.”

“Oh … just navel-gazing, I suppose. I, ah, spent the afternoon at our museum.” She could feel a tilt of his head and knew he must be nodding toward where the museum stood on the other side of the park. Though one of his hands remained at her shoulder, the other had fallen at some point to her waist. “Stayed there till close, then … sort of meandered in here on my way home and thought I’d sit a while. Why do you ask?”

Her own hands were now resting on his chest. She watched her fingers trace the pattern of his cardigan and shook her head. “Just wondering what the odds were that, out of this whole damn city, I happened to walk by the one streetlamp that had you.”

For several moments, there was only the breath of the sea and the bullfrogs croaking amidst the reeds.

Edmund’s hand slid from her shoulder. He brought it between them to cover one of her own, cradling her fingers between the warmth of his palm and the heat of his chest. When she lifted her face, she found him smiling down at their hands.

“It’s not just my imagination, is it,” he murmured, sounding like a man who expected to find himself the butt of a joke. Despite his smile, the sadness of his tone twisted her heart.

“What’s not?”

“This. _Us_. The … possibility of an ‘us.’”

Anna’s hand tensed beneath his.

This close, there was nowhere to look but his eyes and no way to pretend she didn’t know exactly what he meant. She hadn’t managed to find her voice by the time Edmund cleared his throat.

“Ah. I hadn’t meant to spring this on you at quite such a … delicate time. But since it seems I have—”

“Don’t,” she whispered, to no avail.

“—I treasure our friendship, of course—I will, no matter what else, always treasure our friendship—but it seems ridiculous to pretend we’re not already a bit … beyond that. Aren’t we.”

His hand pressed hers flat against his heart, and Anna thought back to every time her skin had touched his.

 _I’m so sorry_.

Fraught moments, careful moments, moments she’d nearly forgotten. Moments as meaningless as the brush of their fingers when she handed him a tea or when she’d first pried a mug of stale coffee from his hand. Moments amidst thunder and lightning, clinging to him because he was the only thing she had.

 _I don’t feel the same_.

The faintest rasp of stubble on his cheek and the smoothness of his neck, where the skin was thin and hot. And his lips. Last of all, his lips. She should never have done that. She’d only meant to wipe away the blood. But then his breath had touched her palm, and it had been so easy to slide her thumb along his mouth.

 _I hope we can still be friends_.

Would the sum of them be great enough to mean something, she wondered, if she could add up all those scrapes of skin.

“Anna…” Edmund was no longer smiling. His eyes were the only things darker than the sea. “Say … something. Please.”

Perhaps they’d mean nothing. Perhaps they’d mean everything. But in that moment, her only consolation in the world was that, with his chest hot beneath her palm, she _knew_ his heart was pounding as swiftly as hers.

_I’m sorry so sorry I don’t feel the same Edmund I hope—_

Anna heard herself speak.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Wellp, that seems like a good place to break! Very satisfying. Just gonna leave that right there for ya.
> 
> Epictetus, to whom Edmund alludes, was a Greek Stoic who cautioned, "A ship should not ride on a single anchor, nor life on a single hope." The only other quote in this chapter is from Burn Gorman himself, because yes, apparently I've reached that point. Edmund shares Burn's sentiment that bullfrogs are "a very underrated amphibian." If you're not already aware of Burn's relationship with the species, [prepare to have your life enriched](http://41.media.tumblr.com/b0466dbddbb64d388e761c7c17c550d6/tumblr_nbh8zojHiK1tl2wexo3_1280.jpg). ([source](http://burngormanhasthefaceofadorito.tumblr.com/post/96778172892/are-we-all-just-gonna-forget-that-this-was-a))
> 
> As anyone who's witnessed my ongoing tumblr meltdown already knows, I'm very excited and very scared about season 3! But I did want to mention that there won't be spoilers in this fic. I know not everyone gets to watch episodes live or maybe not even till well after the season's aired. Don't worry; I've already got the major beats of this story planned out to the end, and no matter what happens in season 3 ... *fingers cross* ... it's unlikely to influence any major developments here. I do plan to watch live, though, so feel free to scream your Turn feelings at me as they hit; I just won't offer spoilers till I know you've watched.
> 
> And on a related note, in case you were wondering: yeah, this fic is gonna have an end. It's already planned. Heck, it's already partially written. So if you were hoping it would go on forever: sorry! On the other hand, there's still a ways to go, so if you were hoping it was almost done: also sorry! My current estimate for total length is "As Long As It Needs To Be."


	15. Shui Hsien

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erstwhile on LOA: Edmund asked Anna whether she, too, felt they were becoming more than friends. This time on LOA: Anna answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shui Hsien: a variety of dark Oolong with a distinct fragrance of honey. Also known as _water sprite_ or _narcissus_ tea.
> 
> This chapter contains echoes of a small moment from chapter 11, in case you wanted to refer back re: streetlamps. Thanks for your patience on this one! And thank you as ever for your feedback and thoughts; your comments are my very favorite thing. Hope everyone's enjoying season 3!

In the final heartbeats before the kiss, Anna had the surreal sensation of falling into her own face.

Twins of her face, actually. Two paper-white ovals reflected in the pupils of his eyes, swimming in darkness that bled out the edges of her hair and made her appear stark and small. How delicate she looked in his eyes; how fragile. Her face nothing more than the egg of some miniscule bird, her shell so thin that an errant breath might be enough to shatter her. And if a breath was all it took to break her, she shuddered to even dream of how wrecked she’d be by his lips.

With her heart in her throat, Anna leaned forward.

Her gaze affixed on his mouth—

His gaze blank, bewildered, speaking nothing but echoes of her own—

And at the last moment, she closed her eyes, heart pounding to imagine how his expression might change once her lips finally met his.

Only, they never did.

“Easy there, girlie!” Caleb crowed, just as Anna—poised precariously with puckered lips as she leaned far out her bedroom window—leaned a touch _too_ far and slipped. Her stomach splayed on the sill. Her feet left the floor, and only by the grace of the Smith family’s predilection toward strong hands did she manage to catch herself in time to keep from plummeting headfirst into the backyard. And the kiss, of course, veered off course entirely. Hanging a wild right, what had been intended as a chaste peck turned into a head butt that caught Abe on his left cheek hard enough to knock him back in a daze.

Anna Smith, twelve years old, gaped down in horror at her best friend and secret crush, whom she’d just assaulted with her face.

Over by the edge of the yard, a certain other loyal, supportive friend sounded like he might suffocate on his own laughter, even as Ben hissed to shut up before they woke Anna’s dad. Maybe that would’ve been a mercy, though. Being grounded for the rest of eternity sounded like a pretty miserable way to die, but better that than wait to be boiled alive by the embarrassment scalding her cheeks.

It had seemed like such a good idea, at first. Wake up to the sound of pebbles being thrown at her window—not the first time. Sneak out with the boys, have some adventures, break some bottles, fight some wars, try to pretend she hadn’t noticed how their foursome separated more and more naturally these days into Ben and Caleb vs. Anna and Abe any time they had to pick teams. A routine summer’s night. Not until they were nearly back to her house had her mind begun drifting back to the poem she’d been reading just before she fell asleep.

Blame it on the poem, then. Blame it on the strange, twisting desire it had stirred within her, blame it on how tempting her features made it to cast herself in the role of the landlord’s black-eyed daughter, little as the gawky, grass-stained girl she saw in the mirror much resembled anything a poet would want to write about. There was just something so gripping about the notion of leaning out the casement toward the roguish, spirited boy she loved so much and finally sharing with him her very first kiss.

Now, in classic Anna fashion, she’d gone and ruined it all.

Caleb was bent double, Ben trying to stifle Caleb’s laughter with his hand. She didn’t dare look at Abe. It was eons before she worked up the courage to glance down at him. Already, she knew what she’d find: disgust, dismay, annoyance, anger. Unequivocal rejection, and the crushing realization that her best friend would never want anything to do with her again.

Abe’s eyes were wide, stunned. She could no longer see herself in them, but she could see redness roughening one cheek. Gingerly, he lifted a hand to his face.

Then his lips bloomed into a smile, and he looked at her with such awe. As though she were the rising sun.

For the better part of Anna’s life, she had been certain that must be the secret to love: to be the center of another person’s orbit, to be their sole source of warmth, their sole source of strength, their beacon and their guiding light. Not until far too many years had worked their way into her bones did she realize that the sun was not only the brightest star in Earth’s sky, but the least constant. The contrast between night and day was too stark; the light shone too bright for anyone to admire for long, and when night fell, no one even missed it, because it was so easy to take for granted the inevitability of dawn. And to _be_ another human’s sun—oh god, who would _want_ that? Did they not realize how exhausting it was to bear the burden of someone’s every passion and hope? Did they have any idea what _agony_ it was, how it consumed you from the inside out, to burn so hot and so bright for someone who was content to ignore you twelve hours out of each day—yet who always expected you to be there, waiting for him, when he decided it was morning again.

When she _did_ finally kiss Abe (years later, at a party), his tongue had tasted of tequila and cigarettes. It wasn’t so many years later that she’d felt herself starting to go red giant, all her fuel burning up till she was hollow. Her light dimmed; her blood cooled, sluggish and dark. Maybe _that_ was why Abe had left. Maybe that was why no man had looked at her with the sun in his eyes since.

…There had been a time, only a couple weeks ago. When Edmund walked her home one night after close, and beneath the sulfurous haze of the streetlamp outside her apartment, she had glanced up to find him watching her with an expression far stranger than anything she’d ever known from Selah or Abe. Even for _Edmund_ , it was odd, which was saying quite a lot. Only once before could she recall seeing his smile so unguarded and so bright:

That night at the museum, in the secret catwalk high above the rest of the world, with the dusty pinpricks of every constellation in the heavens reflected in his eyes.

He’d meant to kiss her beneath that streetlamp, she was certain. She should have let him. She should have leaned into it, closed her eyes against the moonlight and the halo of gold surrounding them, and melted into the sensations of heat and breath and skin until he became her entire existence. She should have rested one hand against his heart and the other along the side of his neck so that the ell of her thumb slid snugly into that hollow beneath the sharp, square corner of his jaw. Selah’s lips had had the deep curve of a cupid’s bow and Abe’s the elegant sweep of a wing, but Edmund’s made a longbow, thin and flat, and she wondered what they would have felt like, what he would’ve tasted like, whether she’d made him drink enough tea by then that his flavor would seem already familiar to her or whether a lifetime of coffee would make him forever warm and earthy on her tongue. She should have curled her fingernails into the weave of his crisp white shirt and held him in that moment as long as she could.

And if, for some reason, he hadn’t gone for the kiss after all, she should have pulled him down by his necktie and done it for him.

Most of all, she should never have taken for granted a man who looked at her as though she were not one lonesome and overburdened star, but an entire sky full of them. Because even as she gave him his answer now, she knew that once he heard it, Edmund would never look at her that way again.

 

\---

 

“I don’t … understand.”

“What’s not to understand?”

“How it’s _relevant_.”

“How can it not be relevant?”

“ _How_ ,” insisted Edmund, and with the sea licking steadily at the shell- and sand-laden shore at their side and his own face mirrored in duplicate in Anna’s eyes, he couldn’t help but think that this was how Narcissus must have felt trying to wring answers from Echo. They still stood with mere inches between them on the willow-strewn edge of the bay, her hand pressed over his heart and his hands clasped over hers—yet they may as well have been shouting from opposite sides of the bay, for all good speech seemed to do.

What an unfortunate Echo she must be, to deserve a Narcissus like him. By moonlight, the white of his skin looked stark as ice floating in the pools of her eyes, and the shadows deepened every crow’s-foot and pockmark a hundredfold. Such a face could surely tempt no one to suicide or despair, so how was it that he seemed to possess the same talent for asking, and asking, and receiving nothing but reflections of his words.

Perhaps they were the wrong questions, then. But perhaps he could be forgiven if his wit was not currently at its sharpest. After all: he had prepared himself, or so he thought, for every eventuality. A thousand times he had imagined this moment, this confession, this perilous uncertainty as he waited for her either to catch him or to let him fall, and so he had steeled himself for rejection, tempted himself with requital, let his heart dare to beat a faster tempo at the thought that perhaps she would not answer him with words at all, but would simply lift her face to his and let her body melt into his arms. _Yes, no, I’m sorry, I love you, I hate you, I don’t feel the same—_ he would have known, at least, what to do with any of those.

So surely he could be forgiven some shock when the words that fell out of her mouth turned out to be _I fucked Abraham Woodhull_ instead.

“Anna.” Already she was looking away from him. Already he could feel this night, this moment, the warmth they had only seconds ago shared, slipping away from him like water through his hand. The more soothing he tried to make his tone, the more crumpled the look on her face. “I am aware there is … history between Abraham and yourself. And given your connections with his family—given _my_ connections with his family—I imagine that your feelings on the matter must be … complicated.”

That won him a reaction, at least, little though he cared for it. He wasn’t entirely certain whether the sound she made was a laugh or a sob.

“But my dear, please do not fear for one moment that I am in way jealous, or, or judgmental, or—”

“This isn’t a history lesson, Edmund.” Cruel that his name on her lips should still have such power over him, even whispered so raw. “This is barely months ago. The day I lost—that day you and I met at Whitehall. Years after Abe married, and long after I did, too, and long after the birth of his son. I looked Mary Woodhull in the eye and told her she had nothing to fear from me, and then I—and then I fucked her husband within the hour, because he, because I wanted him, and I loved him, I loved him so much, I always did.”

He wished he could say he felt nothing, then. He wished he could say that the words slid off him like water from a stone and that he could honestly claim to her that none of that mattered, any of it, he didn’t care. It would be mostly true, at least. _Fucked_ —a horrible word; why did people insist on using it so much? Why would anyone want to characterize oneself and one’s lover as engaged in an act that sounded so harsh and so degrading to all involved? Ordinarily, he’d flinch from the word, give it a scowl. Yet tonight, _that_ word didn’t even leave a scratch.

 _Love_ , on the other hand. _Love_ left Edmund cold.

He swallowed, unable to relax his shoulders, and drew a shaky breath.

“And you tell me this … why, precisely.” His hands made a cage for hers. He wasn’t certain which of them were trembling. “You have _some_ reason, I hope. Or is your only object here to wound.”

Her eyes flew open. Deep as wells and vast as the ocean and thrice as cold. Her lips pressed tight, and by the tremor of her nostrils, for a moment he was sure he’d ruined it all again—but then, with a swallow, she, too, looked down at their joined hands.

“Thought you weren’t the jealous sort,” she murmured, and he bit his lip. How small her hand felt against his sternum; how light. A tiny bird. He loosened his grip lest he crush her, then let his thumb brush her knuckles as he shook his head.

“Not jealous, no. That’s not—that’s not this. I am … This is …” A helpless laugh tore from him, and against all logic whatsoever, he felt his cheeks stretching into a grin. It made his face feel like marble cracking. “For heaven’s _sake_ , Anna. I bare my heart to you, and practically the first words out of your lips are to tell me how much you love another man.” The grin became little more than a rueful twist of the lips. “I don’t care whom you’ve—fucked, Anna. I don’t care when. But I—I don’t understand—why you could not simply tell me I was wrong about what we have, and … and leave it at that.”

Within his hands, Anna’s turned. Fingertips stroking down his palm, tender as a kiss. She’d made no move to pull away. Even now, surely it must count for _something_ that she had not yet pulled away.

With her free hand, Anna touched her fingertips to his cheek, and a shiver ran through him from nape to navel at her touch.

“You are such an impossible man,” she whispered, in a tone that did not match her words. His jaw tensed, but before he could counter, she pressed, “And kind, and decent, and—respectable. _Honorable_ , I guess I would say, if people still talked about having things like honor. _Good_. And I am—I am telling you this, Edmund, because you deserve to know—you deserve to hear it from me, not, not from Richard Woodhull or from Abe or Mary or anyone else, and not to find out the hard way, after it’s too late—you deserve to know that I—that I am—”

Her voice cracked, and his heart with it. “I am _none_ of those things. I am—cruel, and, and reckless, and an adulteress, and a failure, and bitter and inconstant and _angry_ , I have always been so _angry_ … So much so that I can’t even remember what it’s like to live without feeling as though I’m at war. I am … a mess. And no matter how I tried, Edmund ... I _know_ I would not make you happy, in the end.”

Her hand slid down his neck. In its wake, he felt nothing but numb. As she smoothed wrinkles from the sleeve of his cardigan, he realized that she was smiling. Tremulously, but smiling. It cut a disturbing contrast with the wetness of her eyes.

“For a little while, perhaps.” At first, he could scarcely pick out her whisper from the waves. “We could have that. But in the end … In the end, there always _is_ an end. And never a painless one, with me.”

He’d been wrong, he realized, looking down at her. He’d assumed—how silly of him; by virtue of little else but their sexes, he’d assumed he knew which of them was the nymph in this equation and which the lover wasting away. But what was it that drove Narcissus into the water, truly? Not love, no, not love. Echo, now—Echo was love; Echo was the pain of unrequited desire and the humiliation of rejection and the slow, wasting disappointment of feeling so much in one’s heart but having no idea how to make it known. But Narcissus was the morbid temptation to overanalyze and regret and obsess, and Narcissus was…

Narcissus was … catharsis. In its purest form.

Play a tragedy upon the stage, Aristotle said, and the effect is like a physician lancing an abscess to drain the poison away. The audience weeps; the audience agonizes; the audience feels the characters’ pain—but in the end, the audience emerges happier and healthier than before. Because the secret, of course, to releasing pain was that one first must _indulge_ in it. How could Edmund ever have thought it was love that drove Narcissus into the pool? How could he ever have thought it something as simple as selfish desire? No, no, he’d been doing the poor boy such an injustice all these years, never pausing to consider what sweet release it must have been for that desperate and tormented soul to finally just _give in_. To be _whole_ ; to reclaim his reflection from the water, to plunge beneath the skin of his own hated-beloved face and sink beneath the weight of his perfection, down, down, deep inside himself, to the fetid hollows at the bottom of the pond where he kept all the darkest, most poisonous secrets of his heart … and then to sleep there in grotesque wholeness, free of illusions at last. A perilous thing to do, yes, and painful—and yet also, in its own way, a relief.

Edmund understood, then, Anna’s smile, and the beatific peace mingling so strangely with her pain. But understanding did nothing to make him feel less numb.

Anna’s eyes glittered like galaxies. The faint tear tracks down her cheeks remained dry, but wetness glimmered at the ends of her eyelashes as she rapidly blinked, her smile trembling. Edmund took a breath—looked down at their hands, wondered how simple a thing it would be for her to push her fingers through his sternum to his heart—but the words would not come. And with every second of silence, her smile continued to slip.

Gently, and meeting no resistance as she did, Anna pulled her hand from his.

“Um.” Anna stepped back, leaving his chest suddenly cold. Another step and he felt the sea breeze cutting right to his bones. Too frozen to move. Anna stumbled as she retrieved her backpack, then flicked a glance at him, fingers trembling where they rested over her mouth.

Then, with an equally unsteady laugh, she shook her head. “...I hope we can still be friends.”

And with that, she turned and all but fled.

Edmund’s reflection was adrift on the sea. The moonlight made each wave a silver blade, and he watched as with every breath of the tide they cut his image into pieces again and again: sliced him apart, reunited him, the water killing and resurrecting ad infinitum. With every wave, the sound of her boots crunching through shells and mud took her farther and farther away.

At last, Echo found his voice.

“And what of my sins?”

Her footsteps stopped.

She was climbing the step and salt-slick bank that led from the seashore back up to the higher ground of the park. One foot poised higher than the other; one shoulder turned to glance back at him, hesitant. For leverage, she held to the trailing branchlets of the weeping willow tree that grew nearby. Leaves and catkins drifted in front of her as he spoke.

“A good man. I’ve always aspired to be, I admit. A good son, a good student, a good lawyer … I have always done what those with greater authority than myself told me was _right_. Whether that authority was my parents or my employer or the law, and regardless of whether it might have been better to offer mercy than demand justice.” He took his first step, and was relieved when she remained still. “For which _others_ have sometimes suffered … as you well know.”

Now Anna did recoil, and shake her head. “No, we—we put that behind us, Edmund. I forgave you about the shop long a—”

“Yes, you _did_. Truly the hallmark of a cruel and bitter woman with not an ounce of kindness or honor in her body. _Kind_ —for heaven’s sake, Anna, if my employees could hear you.” With a scoff, he raked his fingers through his hair. Within himself, he could feel a bitterness of his own growing, twisting, carving out a pit that beckoned to him. How _easy_ it would be to let himself fall in. “Do you know how the junior associates at Whitehall would laugh to hear _anyone_ describe me as kind.”

“...They don’t know you. The real you.” Her voice was nearly too soft to carry. “Not like me.”

“Don’t they? They see me nearly every day. They see that I, that I am strict, demanding, impersonal. That I expect them to work tirelessly without complaint, that I make no attempt to socialize beyond the most basic level of professional courtesy, that I rigidly enforce even the most obscure of rules—they see that I do not _blink_ before signing the paperwork that will ruin someone’s life, all because the law tells me that what we do is _right_. I could go on, Anna, I _could_. I could call myself heartless and overbearing and ugly if that’s what you need to hear. If you insist on damning yourself for your own defects, so be it, but how _dare_ you protest me damning myself for mine.”

By the end, his shoulders were stiff, his chin lifted, his breath hard. Perhaps this was what she meant by feeling at war. “You might refrain, at least, from wielding your mistakes like some sort of _wedge_ between us. Not when I suspect they’re more like a shield.”

With every step toward her, he kept his gaze on her face, fearful of what he might see. Her eyes held fear as well. He hoped it was only for the same reasons as his.

“I cannot pretend to … _admire_ your indiscretions with Abraham. For Mary’s sake if for nothing else. But I know that you are more than the sum of your mistakes. If you tell me to leave it at this, I will. But…”

He stood at the foot of the bank now, right in front of her. Looking up into her colorless face.

“Before you claim that we _cannot_ be together, at least answer me this: Do you _wish_ to be?”

Strange, to see Anna from this angle. He was no towering giant, but he had a few inches on her, at least—less when she wore heels—and had become so used to glimpsing the top of her head that he hadn’t realized how much more remained to be explored: hidden places along the line of her jaw and down her throat that he found it intolerable, all of a sudden, to think of never seeing again.

Anna bit her lip. He had an agonizing view of the way her breath kept catching in her throat.

Then, with tears in her eyes, tentatively at first but ever surer, she began to nod. 

The knot of bitterness unraveled into something pure and clear and light, leaving him helplessly smiling and weightless. Weightless _enough_ , at least, to stumble only slightly as he grasped a handful of willow branches and clambered two steps up the bank. He did nearly manage to bowl Anna over before she caught him. He braced her waist with his free hand and she placed hers on his shoulder, and when he tilted his face up, she lowered her forehead to rest against his.

“Please don’t ever say such things about yourself again,” he whispered. The bridges of their noses fit together in a perfect, complementary curve; every breath she exhaled landed on his lips. “Please don’t _think_ them.”

“They’re all true.” Her words came out in a rush. “Every word of it’s true. Eventually—”

“Hang ‘eventually.’ We have _tonight_.”

Anna let go of the tree. Both her hands slid to the sides of his face, where they burned impossibly hot despite the sea breeze. He, too, let go. They had to mind their balance and keep their feet turned to the side, poised precariously as they were on the sloping earth, but that didn’t stop him from moving his hand to her jaw.

Her hair was a briar. Her eyes red and swollen, her jumper beginning to look rather worn. But then, she was hardly the one with a bruise over half her face. None of it made him wish to look at her a moment less.

Gently, he angled her chin.

“What are you doing?” she whispered. The air stirred over his mouth when she spoke. Edmund swallowed hard.

“Ah. Attempting to determine the best angle at which to put our faces together. That is. If you don’t mind.”

“The best angle?” They were just close enough that he could feel a smile creeping across her lips.

“Yes. Of course, it tends to come naturally once the faces in question are familiar, but in the early stages of the, ah, the process, one must consider, you know—how to minimize the bumping of noses, for example, or, or the clashing of teeth. I am trying to assess the optimal trajectory for my approach.”

Slender fingers spidered up the side of his neck to his jaw. Her breath sounded ragged and soft. “Ever considered just winging it?”

“I suppose that _is_ one strategy ... but I prefer a more scientific approach. One can hardly consider an experiment meaningful if one has no hypothesis at the star—”

Mercifully, it was at that moment that Anna took pity on him and stopped his ramblings with her lips.

 

\---

 

Edmund Hewlett did not taste of coffee.

He didn’t taste of tea, either, or of the old books and saddle leather his clothes somehow always smelled of, or of the cologne he often wore on weekdays—that citrusy one; not a citrus bright and acid like lemon but warm as a pearl of bergamot oil in Earl Grey. Anna slipped her lip between his and sighed into the tentative pressure of his mouth. Edmund tasted, to be honest, of not much at all.

A hint of wine; a tint of copper from the cut at the corner of his mouth; a tang of something that might have been brine from the spray of the sea or might have been her own tears caught between their lips—she couldn’t be certain which and couldn’t care less anyway, because he tasted ordinary and extraordinary and she hadn’t even gotten past his teeth yet, but she knew she wanted more. The hands splayed broad over her shoulder blades pulled her flush. Their chests pushed together hard enough to hurt, almost, hard enough to leave her breasts tender and sore. They ached as she tangled her hands in his cardigan and pulled him closer still.

It probably would’ve been even better if she’d actually managed to get him square on the mouth. As it was, she had about as much of his philtrum as she did his actual lip, and Edmund seemed unaware that most of what he was currently romancing was her chin. Only at the last moment did they manage to get a decent seal—just in time to slip apart again, as languid as waking in the sun.

Their noses bumped. Edmund huffed.

“You’ve ruined my experiment,” he muttered, and might have succeeded in sounding severe if he weren’t quite so out of breath. Anna’s lips twitched.

“That trajectory not good enough for you?”

“Acceptable. For a first attempt. But I don’t know that we should really consider it in our final analysis, considering you tampered with the method.”

Edmund’s hands slid alongside her jaw, and she let her eyes fall shut, let him tilt her face up, shuddered. His hands were so large that his fingers braced the back of her neck even as his thumbs pressed into the thin and sensitive skin below her chin. They swayed together on the incline of the bank, balancing more against each other than against the earth; even now, she could feel her feet sliding ever so slowly down the grass and mud. Yet what was gravity compared to the cradle of his hands, holding her up, holding her steady, the pressure as even and reassuring as a rider’s guiding rein.

“Perhaps—a second trial?” The tremor in his voice belied his sure touch. Even with her eyes closed, she felt him leaning in again.

At the last moment, she twisted her face and caught him on the corner of his mouth. His next attempt she deflected to her own cheek, then darted a peck at his lips before he had time to recover. “Stop creating outliers in my data!” he sputtered, and that clinched it; Anna threw back her head with laughter, and as one, they dissolved into a giggling mess. Her foot slipped in the mud, and where Anna’s trusty boots failed, Edmund’s oxfords stood no chance; down they both went in a heap.

They came to rest in a hollow sculpted where the weeping willow’s roots arced above the earth. Anna sprawled in the grass, her skin now chill with dew. Edmund hovered above her on hands and elbows, looking dazed. One of his thighs was wedged hard between hers. She wondered if he’d even noticed that yet, or whether he had any idea how that ache in her breasts was fast travelling south.

“Oh,” Edmund gasped, eyes wide and fretful. This turn of events seemed to have left his nerves even more ruffled than his hair, which she really ought to muss more often. “Oh, are you all—”

Kissing proved an effective way of hushing him. Equally effective, she hoped, at easing the tension in his shoulders and coaxing his lips open more than a crack. Her back sunk into the damp grass, and she smoothed her thumbs across his cheekbones till he relaxed enough to sink onto her. When their teeth clicked, she offered her tongue instead, and couldn’t help but shiver a victorious thrill when his fingers tangled in her hair.

All around them, the air hung crisp with the tingling, astringent scents of cut grass and flowers just coming into bloom. Every now and then, the papery rasp of a willow branch drifted across her brow or tickled her fingers where they cradled the back of Edmund’s head. That short hair of his did nothing to smooth all the fascinating ridges and creases of his skull. Give her a lifetime to study them, and she would map the lot of them with her fingertips; chart the orb of his cranium and the parabolic swoop of the hollow above the nape of his neck, calculate the degrees of his jaw line, plot the progress of his cheekbones, starting at their origins alongside his impossibly long-lashed eyes and down along the lines they cut to his chin. And if the day ever came that his face had no surprises left, there were those collarbones to consider, and his wrists, and the hipbones currently digging into her own. Anna had nothing of the scientist to her. She had not the first notion what tools to use or the first ounce of cleverness required to reduce his features to any format that an objective outsider would understand—but she had to try. He deserved to see himself painted in the language of the things he loved most.

In lieu of all that, however, sucking on his lower lip seemed a decent method of showing her appreciation, too. Judging by the ragged groan that won from him, Edmund agreed. Until she sucked too hard too near the cut on his lip, at least, and his moan sharpened to a gasp.

“All right?” With a fingernail, she rasped the faintest line along his jaw.

“Mortally wounded. You’ve murdered me. I’m dead.”

Anna took his face in her hands, relishing how smooth and cool his cheeks felt on her palms. He did indeed stop breathing as, chastely, she pressed her apology to the center of his lips. She pressed another to the tip of his nose for good measure, then two more to the wrinkles at the corner of each eye, then beneath his ear and down to the collar of his shirt, making his shoulders tremble. The last she pressed to the ever-worried crease between his eyes. He dropped his brow against her temple and drew a ragged breath.

“You smell like your shop. Like tea,” he clarified, and Anna snorted.

“I smell like someone who hasn’t seen a shower in three days.”

A shake of the head. His hand moved to her ribs.

“This jumper, your favorite jumper. It always smells like that tea with all the spices. Especially on Mondays … The one with the ginger, and the pepper and cloves.” His fingers smoothed through the wool of her sweater. The fabric gathered under his hand and bunched just beneath her breast. “And the smell of the grass reminds me of that green one you made for me, it was relatively non-terrible in terms of taste, but I told you it looked like insect legs and you—”

“Sencha.”

He nodded against her throat, apparently oblivious to the tightness she suddenly felt there. Then he tilted his head down. She had her eyes closed, trying to swallow the lump in her throat, when the first dry touch of lips below her collarbone startled her into an embarrassing gasp.

No surprise that Edmund had turned out to be a gentle kisser. The line of kisses he trailed from the neckline of her sweater up to the hollow beneath her ear grew less tentative with each one, but even the last was featherlight enough to leave goosebumps in its wake. For all that those weightless touches left her shivering, she couldn’t help but wonder what kind of kisser he’d be when he was coming undone.

Edmund finished with a nuzzle against her jaw, then drew back. The shadows couldn’t hide the wonder in his smile, an unselfconscious awe she wished she could remember how to feel.

“Look at you,” he breathed. Willow branches were drifting behind him, carving lines across the moon. She wondered if he even noticed his elbow was planted in mud.

She traced one of the lines at the corner of his mouth.

“I’ve got a better view, thanks.”

“ _Hah_. Well, you’re entitled to your opinion, I suppose, however wrong.”

“Who’s _saying such things_ about himself now?”

His mouth pretended at a scowl, but his eyes remained so bright.

“Just for that…” When he leaned forward on his elbows, his lower body dragged unbearably against hers. It made Edmund’s voice falter and both their throats catch. “J-just for that, I shall have to kiss you again.”

Her trembling thighs squeezed tight around his leg. One hand fastened to his hip. “Just for that, I’ll let you.”

How long they lay in the grass like teenagers, she wasn’t sure. Long enough for the dew beneath Anna’s back to soak her sweater and jeans; long enough to leave her lightheaded and Edmund panting into the side of her neck. Even with the heat trapped between them, however, eventually the chill coming off the water became too much.

Setauket slept. But for the occasional car or passerby, they were alone in the lamplit streets. It filled Anna with the sense that they’d never left the bank, that they somehow carried with them the sheltered privacy of that tree. Those they did pass by must’ve thought she and Edmund were drunk though, the way they were weaving: Edmund’s arm draped around her waist, her cheek pillowed against his shoulder, his nose in his hair and her palm never lifting from his heart. With every step, they stumbled, hips bumping. With every step, the heat between her legs was building into a low and throbbing ache.

Soon, she knew, they would reach the streetlamp outside her apartment. And then … what. His fingers kneaded absently at her hip. They were both adults here, after all. This was a dance they’d both danced before. She was a widow, for Christ’s sake, and engaged before that, and there must have been women—it was surreal and more than a little disquieting to think of Edmund looking at anyone the way he looked at her, but there must have been women in the past who’d known how to wring that ragged moan from his throat. Where were they now, she wondered, those women he’d thought he loved?

So: they would reach the streetlamp, just like before. The scenario spooled out in her mind. He would kiss her on her already swollen lips, slowly, deeply, as courteously as a fairy-tale prince. She would give him a bit of teeth just to balance things out, and then—what? Invite him up for coffee? She didn’t even _have_ coffee. And her apartment was in such tatters now. So many of Selah’s things still strewn about, the bed unmade—Selah’s bed…

Her fingers twitched nervously against Edmund’s chest. Somehow, Edmund just struck her as the sort of man who appreciated a neatly made bed.

“You’re quiet,” he murmured against her crown. They rounded a corner, and the streetlamp came into view.

“So are you.”

“Words seem paltry now. You’ve stripped the silver from my tongue.”

Anna groaned into his collar. “Oh god, I can _tell_.” Though he huffed, she didn’t need to look up to know he wasn’t frowning.

Beneath the streetlamp, they trailed naturally a halt. He unwound his arm so that she spun a lazy circle to face him, then, just as she’d expected, leaned in. She struck first: wrapped her hands loosely in his cardigan, pulled him down. Kissed him hard and close-lipped and lingering, as though equal parts promise and threat. A touch at her jaw gentled her, and she let him persuade her into something softer, almost too soft to bear.

“Um,” she ventured as they broke apart. Her fingers couldn’t stop playing with his collar. With a nail, she traced the edge of the button at the base of his throat. “Would you like to…”

She nodded toward her apartment, and at her fingertips, his Adam’s apple jumped.

“Ah. Um. No. That is, yes. Yes, I … daresay I would.” Fumblingly, his hands gathered hers. The press of his lips against her knuckles was pure Edmund: forceful, earnest, and rather too flustered to be called suave. “But I’m afraid I’m a bit … old-fashioned in this regard. So. Ah. I will simply say … goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she echoed, gut twisting with relief or disappointment or both. And then, because she knew what it did to him: “Edmund.”

His smile nearly stole her courage for what came next, but it had to be said. Before he could step away, she caught his sleeve.

“Just—promise me this. When it’s … over. When you leave. All I ask is that you give me a reason why.”

If she’d thought that a couple fingers on his wrist would be enough to steady him, she proved herself wrong as usual. He recoiled to squint down at her in shock.

“When I _what?_ ”

“I can’t end things. Once I commit to a relationship, I dig my heels in, I’m done. Even if that means holding on till it kills me. I did it with Selah, and I did it for far— _far_ too long with Abe.” Her hands fluttered over his chest, as though if she just straightened his cardigan enough, she could make him understand. “And when all was said and done, neither of them ever even told me _why_ they gave me up. So ... It’ll have to be you who ends it between us, when, when it’s time. And all I ask for when you do is, just … Please. Promise you’ll give me a reason before you leave.”

Clearly no amount of cardigan straightening was going to help here, to judge by the hurt in his wide brown eyes. His hands braced her upper arms. “Anna, what a thing to _say_. I have _no_ intention of leaving you, I can assure you of—”

“You don’t _know_ that! You believe it now, but you don’t _know_.”

Was it only to mollify her that his grimace melted to resignation, or did he truly understand? Perhaps none of those women in the past had needed reasons. Perhaps _he_ had never been offered one either.

With one of those put-upon sighs she knew too well, he gave a comforting jostle to her shoulders, then a nod.

“Very well. _If_ it ends. _If_ I leave. I promise.” A smile crumpled his face, and she knew, with an ache in her heart, the answer to her question. Her eyes scrunched shut as he cupped her cheeks, a gentle burr of humor in his voice. “But let’s not speak of such things now. I had _intended_ to begin with something a little more lighthearted, in truth.”

There were the tears again, lurking in the back of her throat. Somehow, she managed to swallow them and show him a smile instead.

“What did you have in mind?”

His gaze turned sober then, and when she caught the curve of own cheek just visible in his iris, she wondered what he saw in her—even after all she’d told him—to merit such a look. A look terrifying in its reverence and light. God, how she _wanted_ to be the stars for him—but god, how perilously far stars had to fall.

“Anna.” He took her hands. “Ever since I’ve had the opportunity to know you, you’ve been ... _besieged_ by tragedies and trials. That much, I cannot change. And as much as I wish I could keep you from all such hardship in the future, I realize I may not always be equal to the task. But surely the _least_ I can do is offer you some manner of distraction now—some chance to simply have _fun_.” Gravitas dissolving, he gave a boyish laugh. “My _dear_ —let me take you on a _date_.”

 

\---

 

The stars were out. From its vantage on the topmost floor of his building, Edmund’s flat was near enough to the sky that he could just see those pinpricks of light beyond the smog and the urban glow. He moved through his home, however, in darkness; his limbs weary, his nerves alight.

The window covering the whole of the seaward wall painted everything in his living room a clean blue. The piano, the bookshelves … the telescope on its tripod gathering dust. He passed them all by. His reflection following in the window, overlaid like a ghost upon the city and museum and the park by the sea. By moonlight and the distant blush of the stars, he made his way to the armchair near the window, where he sank down with a rushing sigh.

Never would he have dreamed of slouching like this were anyone but the stars there to see. Nor could he have borne to leave himself so unguarded, in mind and body alike. His shirt hung open to the navel, the cold air tingling on flesh that still burned. He’d stripped himself of shoes and belt by the door, undone his cuffs, shed the mud- and tear-stained cardigan he _knew_ he must wash but that he could hardly bear to now that it smelled of her.

Now, with a languid turn of the wrist, he undid the button above his fly. Not every part of his body was as noble or old-fashioned as his tongue. His hand kept drifting to the crease of his thigh, yet for all the pounding of his blood, his mind was too scattered to commit.

In the window, his reflection passed its hand over its lips, and he wondered what good deed Edmund Hewlett could possibly have done in all his bland and dutiful life to deserve Anna Strong.

His ghost had no answer. Nor, for once, did the stars.

The ghost followed him to the edge of the window as he strode from the room.

A _good_ man, she’d said.

The screen of his laptop was nearly the same blue as the moon, but the glare made him scrunch his face into a scowl.

A decent man. Honorable. Kind.

But what was the point of honor, really, if grounded in a moral system too abstract to comprehend the necessity of compromise?

And what was decency if it left one’s sensibilities too delicate to occasionally roll up one’s sleeves and _do what must be done_ , no matter how unpleasant or shameful or hard?

What was kindness if not the drive to do whatever was in his power to secure happiness for those he loved.

( _Bit soon for that word, isn’t it_ , he reproached himself, logging in remotely to Whitehall’s database, and was summarily ignored. He typed in several keywords and began to search.)

And no. No, he never _had_ done anything, in all his life, to deserve the caress of Anna’s tongue over his teeth or the reflection of his face in her eyes. Perhaps he never would. But to knowingly allow any harm to her when it was within his power to do otherwise would be a more grievous crime than any her husband had committed. And perhaps— _perhaps,_ if he could indeed protect her, from Simcoe and from Selah and from all the shame and danger they threatened to bring—

 _That_ , perhaps, would be a start.

The green-edged business card still waited in his wallet. In the morning, he would call Simcoe once more. Revolting, but it had to be done. He would agree to the Ranger’s terms, no matter how they discomfited him; he would make _clear_ , in harsher and more unyielding language than ever he’d wielded on the courtroom floor, that neither Anna’s person nor reputation nor property were to be exposed to the first hint of peril, or it would be _Simcoe_ who suffered the consequences. Barring that, however—very well.

The time for hesitation was past.

And Edmund would be damned if he found happiness at last only to see it stripped away so soon.

In the morning, then, he would resign himself to all that. But for _now_. For now, he held fast to the memory of dew beneath his lips and willow leaves ghosting their fingertips along his spine: details that he could already feel fraying into a generalized impression of eager tongues and earnest hearts and her, her, her her her her _her_. For now, he planned their date. Wondering where to take her, what he could offer her, what she’d like.

And for now, he squinted into the glow of his laptop well into the night, poring through databases and case files and vague references to forums hidden in the darker corners of the web, till he’d tracked down every scrap of information he could find about the Culper Ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a refresher on precisely what sort of things Simcoe was asking of Hewlett, refer to chapter 13. It's still vague, because I am vague and indecisive about some things, but hey, it's there. (Swooping in an edit here to add: I forgot to mention originally that the poem little Anna derives her misguided romantic notions from is one of my favorites, Alfred Noyes's "The Highwayman." I recommend Loreena McKennitt's version of it if you like poetry set to tunes.)
> 
> Despite my claim that I wouldn't be using anything from season 3 in this fic, I _did_ borrow half an irresistible phrase or two here and there, as I'm sure y'all noticed. I won't point out specifics because I already promised no spoilers, though. I wish I'd gotten this ready to post sooner because I _have_ coincidentally tracked close to some s3 themes here, but that was just a happy accident.
> 
> NEXT TIME on LOA (which, muses and free time willing, will take less than a month this time): The return of some characters we haven't seen in a while, and, of course, The Date.


	16. Lapsang Souchong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nosy friends, reality, and white lies intrude as our darlings prepare for their date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lapsang souchong: A variety of black tea in which the leaves are smoked over pinewood fires. Distinctive, divisive, and established early on in this story as a certain someone's signature drink.
> 
> As I mentioned I might on tumblr, I did end up splitting the original version of this chapter and saving some parts till next chapter. Sorry; 8,500 words to a chapter is fine, but _11,000+_ was just too much! Never fear, though. It really does work out better this way, structurally, and it means I've got a very significant head start on 17.
> 
> So much love and gratitude to aion for [this AMAZING artwork](http://calamity-bean.tumblr.com/post/145922915686/august-admirer-she-pressed-her-lips-together) done in the style of Turn's opening credits!!! _So freaking cool._ And thanks, as always, to everyone for your patience and support.

His mind was adrift with pine smoke, spices, the elusive scent of her shampoo … With the wet heat of her tongue against his teeth, and the dry heat sparked by even the slightest rasp of skin against skin … And with the anticipation, building inexorably in the back of his mind, of _tonight_. Absently he reviewed their schedule for the evening. Every detail ironed down to crisp perfection—everything arranged and accounted for and considered. For tonight— _tonight_ , precisely one week after their first kiss—tonight was to be their first proper date, and everything must be _perfect_ for _her_.

“Edmund? Your thoughts?”

But at the sound of his name, smoke and spices and the taste of her teeth all went tumbling from his head, and Edmund froze, blinking, his pen poised in mid-tap against his lower lip.

Whitehall’s grandest conference room boasted a view of the city and the sea and, if one knew where to look, a nondescript cafe tucked into the elbow of a nondescript street. At the moment, it also boasted the presence of some of the most distinguished citizens in Setauket. Shareholders and bankers, investors and CEOs; men and women alike armored with steel in their hair and starch in the razor lines of their suits. Whitehall’s board of directors, gathered to review the firm’s past and discuss its future.

And every blessed one of them was staring expectantly at _him_.

“… _Ah_.” Only when Edmund swiftly returned his fountain pen to the tabletop did he notice that, God save him, the _cap_ was off. So, the likelihood that his face now sported ink stains: medium to high. No doubt they made a lovely complement to the bruise still yellowing his jaw. “Um, yes, I … That is to say…”

His thoughts. His thoughts—ha, were _wonderful_ , yes, but probably best kept to himself. And likely not relevant to whatever topic this meeting had reached. Desperately he glanced toward the head of the table. There loomed Richard, his scowl a work of art. Behind him, a large screen. It was currently displaying a PowerPoint slide that Edmund supposed might be very useful in orienting himself indeed, had not the font been so alarming or the designer chosen to use yellow type on white.

 _Oh, to hell with it all_.

“Yes,” he concluded decisively. “Yes, that is, I—do believe you’ve hit the nail on the head there, Richard.” The older man’s eyes narrowed, but Edmund beamed only the self-assured smile of a man who most certainly did _not_ have ink on his teeth. “Nothing to add, really; clearly you have the matter well in hand.”

Somehow, under the weight of all those eyes, Edmund held his smile. Much less surprisingly, Richard held his scowl. And, after a few heartbeats of agony, someone else spoke, and all eyes turned away.

Except Richard’s. Pinned by that stare, Edmund found himself feeling inexplicably like a planet: a little one, somewhere far out in space, drifting innocently along its orbit, only to look up and see an asteroid hurtling into its path.

The collision, when it came, did not leave him unscathed.

“Where’s your head at, Hewlett.”

Startled, Edmund nearly dropped his tea. A strange one, this morning; one that had left both himself and Anna smelling faintly of campfires and smoke. It was headed to the rubbish bin anyway, being long since cold, but somehow the cardstock cup remained in his hand as he whirled to face the door of his office—where Richard stood, glowering.

“Ah. My head?” A smile seemed just the antidote to such a frown. Such was usually the way with Richard, who, bless him, had a way of glaring at even the slightest upset as though he could glare it right out of existence—his own particular armor, Edmund supposed, from the stresses of the job; but his bark far outpaced his bite. A bit of humor and mollification, and all would be well once more. “Roughly _hereabouts_ , last I checked,” Edmund answered, waving a hand in the vicinity of his own face. “Why ever do you ask?”

“Edmund, I am _not_ in the mood.”

“Forgive me. But Richard,” he began soothingly, with a chuckle, “whatever is the…”

Something about the way Richard pulled the door shut behind himself—that flat, portentous _click_ —stole the rest from Edmund’s tongue.

Richard held himself with all the pride of an Olympian king as he commandeered the chair in front of the desk, raising his eyebrows toward Edmund’s own chair in a way that made Edmund feel approximately six years old. Meekly, Edmund took a seat. The tea he set down as softly as possible as Richard’s gaze travelled over the room, taking in his case files, neatly organized; his bookshelf, home to Shakespeare and Shelley as well as Plato and Hobbes; his to-go cup of tea. There was a smear of lipstick on the rim, Edmund realized with a flush.

Last of all, Richard’s eyes fell on the chrysanthemum. It curled dry and fragile on the corner of his desk inside a chipped but charming teacup that had once belonged to Edmund’s mother. That heavy mouth twitched toward a smirk.

“Richard, have I offended you?” he ventured quietly, and was rewarded with a humorless laugh.

“How could you have offended me, Edmund. After all, we’ve scarcely seen hide nor hair of you around the office of late. Why, even since you’ve come back … half the time I get the feeling you’re not really here at all.”

“…If you’re referring to this morning’s meeting, I—”

“I am _referring_ to the future of this company, which _you_ seem to have abruptly lost interest in,” snapped Richard, jabbing a finger against the top of the desk dangerously close to flower and cup. “I am _counting_ on you, Edmund. I wouldn’t have poached you to Whitehall if I didn’t think I could count on you, but that means trusting that you can stay _focused_ when meeting with _shareholders_ and _investors_. I’d like to make judge before I retire, if you don’t mind, and I can’t do that without the full engagement of everyone in this firm—my senior partner in particular.”

The words felt like the nettle grass Edmund used to trudge through in the pasture, as a boy—the kind with needles so fine it was only later he even noticed he’d been stung. A shallow, tingling pain. His jaw worked as he blinked at his tea. “…I was away for _two days_ last week.”

“Yes, and considering that was in the middle of the Appleby case, that was bad enough. But to give neither explanation nor warning for it, then to show up this week looking like you’ve been in a barfight—”

Though Edmund’s finger twitched, he refused to touch his bruise. Richard studied him for a moment, then canted his head in the direction of the receptionist.

“…And Joyce tells me we received several calls while you were gone, looking for you. From a young woman who seemed—and I quote— _rather upset_.”

The lift of Richard’s eyebrows made Edmund flush, then blanch, then flush again. Oh Lord—that must be why—the _looks_ he’d been getting from the staff this week—he’d put it all down to the bruise, but—but he’d never even considered—to _think_ how many torrid rumors could be spun about a well-heeled bachelor … who abruptly vanished … pursued by a young woman in distress … and who then returned with a battered face—

His face all aflame, Edmund snatched up his tea and a random folder and stood.

“My performance this week, I think you’ll find, has been satisfactory. I have, as _ever_ , completed my work in a timely fashion and with utmost attention to quality; my cases are proceeding well in hand. So I would _thank_ you to forgive me one moment’s lapse of attention, Richard, and I, I cannot—overstate _precisely_ how much I resent the implication that I do not take my duties here seriously.” Making a beeline for the door, he muttered, “Pardon me, I need to take this to Mary.”

Alas; freedom proved short lived. His heart sank as heavy footsteps followed him into the hall. “I’m having lunch with the chairman tomorrow. He’s asked for a preview of next month’s presentation about the new extension. That means I need a working proposal from you by end of day.”

Managing the acquisition of a new floor of offices was precisely the sort of abstract, detail-oriented logistical work Edmund had been happy to take charge of … and had utterly forgotten about of late, in light of more pleasant concerns. Only the ever-watchful eyes of their employees kept him from a truly adolescent sigh. “You might have mentioned that this _morning_ , then, or yesterday, when there might have been _time_ —”

“Come now, it shouldn’t take that long. You’ll be out of here before eight.”

“I will be out of here at six-thirty, thank you. With the proposal completed or not.”

“Excuse me?”

Once—for most of his career, in fact; from his first summer associateship up through extremely recently—the notion of staying at work till eight on a Friday would hardly have made him blink. Now, however, there was the weight of tea in his hand and anticipation ticking in the back of his mind, and he faced Richard with a helpless spread of his hands.

“I have a prior engagement, Richard. Anything I can’t finish will have to be seen to by Wakefield, I suppose, or—”

For all that he was nearly old enough to be Edmund’s father, Richard was apparently no less susceptible to the temptations of adolescent sighs. “This is what I _mean_ , Edmund, by being able to _count_ on you. You’re the only one who knows this project well enough, you can’t—”

“It’s going to be all _right!_ For heaven’s _sake_ , one would think the success or failure of your entire life rests upon my being available every hour of the—”

“I simply want to know that you have your priorities straight,” Richard growled, and Edmund stopped so abruptly in the middle of the hall that both Richard and a coffee-bearing intern nearly collided with him. The intern managed to avoid dropping his tray of Starbucks, no doubt to the relief of many a colleague.

Richard proved less agile. As the older man stumbled back, his hand clutched at the place on his side where Edmund knew an old injury still pained him. Guiltily, Edmund’s annoyance melted away.

He clapped his free hand on Richard’s shoulder and smiled ruefully at his friend.

“I _apologize_ , Richard. Truly. But I simply cannot stay late tonight. Whitehall appears to still be standing after my absence last week, so I daresay it will survive without me now.”

“Yes,” echoed Richard, and something in his tone chilled Edmund. The calmness of it, the … _distance_ ; as though the two of them had never fawned over Shakespeare together or laughed their way through a drinking song, stumbling, shoulders knocking, sherry in hand. Now, Richard regarded him with the same coolness reserved for defendants on the bench. “Yes, I daresay it will.”

Edmund’s hand slipped from Richard’s shoulder. He opened his mouth, then closed it; his words seeming inadequate, all the sudden, against this man who’d spent the past thirty-five years tearing arguments apart in court.

Richard smiled, then. The first Edmund had seen from him all day. Blue eyes flicked down to the lipstick-stained rim of Edmund’s cup. “I’ll be expecting that proposal on my desk before you go. And Edmund?”

Smile and voice alike dropped as he leaned in. “Leave your love life at home.”

Shoulders knocked as Richard pushed past, and Edmund stumbled back alone. He watched his first and dearest friend in America stride down the hall and found himself feeling more adrift and unmoored than he had since he first stepped off the plane. And he wondered, with a dread that started soft but threatened to smother soon enough, whether what happened in the shop that morning had been some sort of omen after all.

 

\--- That Morning ---

 

“And what torture shall you inflict upon my palate today, my dear?”

“ _Torture._ What, do I drag you in here? Do I pour the tea down your throat? You didn’t have to come by.”

In the gloom, in the stillness, in the blue of the bleak predawn, they watched the horizon grow paler and savored these last stolen moments before the day began. The shop was empty, except for them. The door closed, except to him. Edmund lazed heavy-lidded at what had swift become _their_ table and admired the serpentine curves of her silhouette as she perched upon the table itself, her ankles crossed on the chair next to his own, her neck an impossible arc as she watched the clouds bleed dark across the sky.

That naked throat seemed a sight too lovely for his eyes. Long and pale, her trachea ridged like the vaults of a cathedral; light pooling between her clavicles and along the swooped neckline of her blouse. It made him feel like Actaeon hiding in the rushes, witness to a vulnerability he didn’t deserve to see.

One week. Had it truly been only one week since he found himself granted this overwhelming privilege to see, to touch, to greet her not only with a smile but with a soft press of his lips? One week since she kissed him beneath willows and stars—and quite a _normal_ week, to be honest. The demands of quotidian life failed to appreciate how profoundly his world had changed. Monday called him back to Whitehall and her to the shop; Richard groused about his absence, while an overworked Mr. De Young, Anna informed him, had been too relieved by her return to complain. There was work to be done, routine to bow to, too few hours in the day.

He still visited once a day or so, as before. Still drank her tea, still played the martyr with every sip. Still bickered with relish rather than rancor and still rambled off onto wild tangents that he would have feared would bore her, except that he never rambled long—his train of thought too easily derailed by the tenderness in her eyes. She still looked at him as though she were hanging on every word, and still made him feel at once foolish and deeply proud every time she cut to the heart of his meandering and, in only a handful of words after his thousand, replied with something more elegant and profound than he could ever have managed.

All these things they still did, but now they did them with their fingertips loosely twining and their smiles giddy with the novelty of it. And all their meetings were bookended by kisses too chaste and fleeting to bear.

“After all…” In the mornings, Anna’s voice was even deeper than usual—the richness of velvet and smoke. Her fingers spidered their way across the tabletop till they touched the back of his hand, and he tried to imagine what she must sound like when she first awoke from sleep. “…Not as though you won’t see me tonight.”

“A moral failing, I suppose. I know it will only cause me pain in the end, of course, yet I … can’t seem to stay away.”

Light shifting on Anna’s face as she turned. He could just make out her expression now: the edge of a smile sunk sweetly into shadow, the sparkle in one heavy-lidded eye as she regarded him from over one shoulder. What he wouldn’t give to start every morning with the sight of her looking down at him like that, perched on the edge of their bed with sunlight tracing hips, breasts, thigh. How many nights this week alone had he awoken, throbbing, to the memory of those thighs entwined with his.

Her hand, slender but work-roughened, slid over his.

“I don’t have any tea for you,” she admitted at last. There was no weight to the words, no reluctance; her smile was easy, her brow relaxed where so often it was lined and drawn. Eyes tender, she watched herself stroke his knuckles with her thumb. “Haven’t thought about it, and even if I had, clearly there’s never going to be one you like. I yield.”

“You can’t be serious. You’re giving up? _You?_ Anna, darling, are you quite certain you’re well?”

Edmund’s attempt to feel her forehead ended with her swatting away his hand.

“I’m _fine_. There’s just no point anymore. I only started this game as an excuse to keep making tea, and then I—” For a moment, voice and thumb alike stuttered; stilled. “…I only kept it going as an excuse to keep seeing you.”

Edmund turned his hand over so that her fingers rested on his palm. Then he held her knuckles gently against his lips. Anna ducked her head, biting her lip against a grin, and perhaps it was merely the shadows—perhaps it was merely his wish—but he could have sworn he saw a flush along her throat.

Which accounted for his boldness, perhaps, when he jumped up and wrapped his hands around her waist.

“Well, _I_ shan’t accept victory by forfeit. Where’s the honor in _that_.” Anna, bold and unconquerable Anna, let slip the most delightful little squeak as he pulled her off the table and against his chest. For one shivering moment, her front was sliding down his, the fabric of her skirt bunching between their thighs; then her toes touched the floor, and he seized her hand. “Come—let’s have one final duel, at least.”

“Edmund!” She was laughing, though, as she let herself be swept along without resistance. “I _don’t_ —”

“Here, I’ll pick it, shall I? All you need do is brew.”

They had not yet reached the point, he and Anna, of speaking about religion. Surely they would, someday, but it was all too tender, still, too fragile between them for a topic of such weight. So far as he could tell, if Anna had any sort of belief at all, it was something she carried deep within herself, with no need of priests or churches to tell her what to do with it. Yet from the very first time she had led him into the shop’s stockroom, Edmund had taken in the clutter of it all—the crooked metal shelves heaped haphazardly with boxes; the footstools, the flickering light; the careful organization of coffee and tea alike to account for the room’s subtle differences in temperature, in humidity, all the things he would never have noticed had she not pointed them out—and he had known in his soul that _this_ was Anna’s temple, her place of reflection and peace. Perhaps he would never _enjoy_ tea, but he could at least respect that it represented something more to her than water and leaves.

Hands folded behind his back, he examined her remaining selection. Genmaicha, shui hsien, gunpowder … Most of the names meant nothing to him. To Anna, however, he suspected his choice might mean a very great deal. Feeling the weight of her gaze on his back, he trailed his finger down the row, then, on a whim, stopped.

“Lapsang, apparently!” he read from the label, tapping his finger against the lucky box. The name had an alluring and perilous sound to it, like a fire burning unattended at night. “Lapsang sou—soo-shong? Have I said that right? You must tell me if not.”

Beaming, he turned—and found Anna pale.

“…Have I butchered it that badly? Truly, you can tell me if I—”

“I don’t recommend that one,” Anna interrupted. Her expression was taut, her voice as soft and precise as a feather’s edge.

“Why not?”

A ripple along the ridges of her throat.

“…It’s strong.”

“It turns out I have a taste for such things,” he jested, but still Anna’s smile did not return. His own faded as her brows drew inward and her gaze dropped to the floor. “…Anna?”

“Fine. Fine.” Head bowed, she pushed past so abruptly that he had to shrink back to let her through. From the box, she jerked a vacuum-sealed bag of twisted black leaves. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Ordinarily, the quiet of their mornings together was a warm and cottoned feeling, as comfortable as the stillness after a rain. As Anna set about her task, however—wordless, eyes seldom meeting his—the silence proved agony. He had chosen wrong. Somehow, clearly, he had chosen wrong, and—and how was he meant to fix that, when he hadn’t even the first idea _why?_

As the kettle heated, Anna rinsed the leaves, rolling them gently in her palms so that water tinted the palest champagne ran through her fingers. He’d hoped the work would bring her comfort, as it often did, but her lips remained pursed. Deftly, she turned the water hot enough to steam and did the same with a smooth-sided porcelain cup. The tea went into the cup, a matching lid and saucer received rinses of their own. Then, kettle boiling, she poured—and Edmund recoiled in surprise.

“Good God, Anna, that … smells a fright,” he chuckled uneasily. Somehow he resisted the urge to cover his nose, but his cringe would not be contained. “Should we open a window?”

Anna said nothing; merely settled the lid atop the cup. That helped a _bit_ , but the stench remained. _Strong_ , he decided, had not been a particularly descriptive way of warning him that this tea would, for some incomprehensible reason surely known only to whatever deviants first devised it, smell uncannily like _smoked meat_.

Steeping took but a couple minutes. With her hand wrapped in a cloth, she held the lid in place with her thumb and used it as a strainer as she poured out a tea that sparkled ruby, its color as aggressive as its scent. The taste, he feared, must surely match as well, and watched in trepidation as she snapped a plastic lid onto the disposable cup.

But instead of sliding it across the counter to him like she usually did—right away, when the cup was warmest and made it easier to pretend the whole gesture wasn’t merely an excuse to brush hands—Anna hesitated. Cradling the cup in both hands, he pursed her lips at it, as though in disapproval or uncertainty or … Or whatever was strong enough, he supposed, to make her eyes so distant as she took a sip.

A shudder ran through her. Anna placed the cup atop the counter and did not wait for his hand.

But, “You don’t have to,” she said abruptly, when he lifted the drink. Her arms were folded across her chest, her eyes intent on his and her expression surely more tense than the situation merited. “You won’t like it anyway, so—really. You don’t.”

Edmund struggled to find the right words. “Darling. It’s only … I know it’s important to you, but … It’s only _tea_. It doesn’t … mean anything. You do understand?” His tone turned tender. “We have other foundations to build on.”

“…It does mean something, Edmund. I—I associate—things. People, you know, certain emotions or events. You’re a man of science, you _know_ how powerfully scent can be tied to memory, or to—feelings.” Her hands pawed the air in that way that meant she was struggling as well, ending with a breathy little laugh. “I wanted to find one that would make me think of _you_ —but this … The lapsang—I don’t want—”

Her lip caught her teeth, and, helpless, she dropped her hands.

Of course. Of _course_ that was the cause of her sudden melancholy—how could he have been so thoughtless? For nearly two months now, she’d been opening that secret temple of her heart to him with each new tea. And, for nearly two months, he’d rewarded her with complaints and failure. How exhausting it must have been, to chip away at her heart like that, piece by piece, hoping each and every time that _this_ would be the one, _this_ one he would like, _this_ would be _his_ —and that somehow, that simple sensory link between them would be evidence that he _understood_. That despite all their differences of philosophy and upbringing and class, she still could reach him through the language of her art.

Piece by piece. And each and every one, he’d dropped. What a bleak omen indeed, that her would-be lover should fail to comprehend the thing she loved best … and should select a tea that she’d known from the outset he’d despise like all the rest.

 _Well_. _That_ , at least, he could mend.

Aware of Anna’s eyes upon him and of the trepidation that filled her face, Edmund did not allow himself to hesitate in taking his first sip.

Wood smoke. Juniper. Whiskey. Cloves. Something rather like tree bark, and, and—yes, oh lord, it not only _smelled_ of jerky but rather tasted of it. Worthy flavors each on their own, perhaps, but the combination made his head swim. All in all, it was easily the worst yet. Which made it all the nobler, really, that he somehow managed not only to swallow it but to smile.

“You know, Anna, I … I rather like this one!” Though he wouldn’t have thought it possible, her face fell even further. “No no, truly! I think you’ve actually won.”

To prove it, he choked down another sip. Anna did manage something _like_ a smile, then. But her eyes remained sad.

“Good. Good. I’m glad of it.” Hair, steam-damp, floated around her face; she looked away from him as she raked it back. Without another word, she moved to the sink and began washing her hands.

Someday, perhaps. Someday he would understand. Blessed with enough time at her side, someday he might learn to read her the way fairground fortune-tellers read futures in the dregs of tea, and perhaps then he would understand the passion she had for her craft and might even feel that fire reflected into his own heart, a warm and steadying glow. Then, perhaps, he might understand why her moods sometimes took these turns. For now, however, he only wished he knew … what she needed, at times like this. Should he speak, or be silent? Hold her, or give her space? Do his best to cheer her with jests and reassurances and distraction, or simply sit with her in tacit solidarity and hope that his presence could offer some comfort till her melancholy ran its course?

But there was, he supposed, no science to this.

In the end, after several moments of watching her scrub her hands, he took her shoulders from behind and kissed the damp hair at her temple till, the stiffness in her muscles easing, she melted backward into his arms. _Till tonight?_ he whispered, and _Till tonight_ , she replied; the water still running in the sink. Her head lay back against his shoulder, his lips brushing the bow of her throat.

She had resumed washing her hands when he left, scouring them as though she meant to scrape off the skin.

 

\---

 

He should not get involved. He _must_ not get involved—neither of them would _want_ him involved, no more than he would wish either of them interfering with himself and Anna. This much Edmund knew, and it—along with the clock ticking so inexorably toward seven—was enough to keep him focused on the still-incomplete proposal before him.

But even as he did his best to focus, it was impossible to ignore the Woodhullian family drama unfolding just beyond his office walls.

“—had _plans_ , Abraham—you can’t just—”

“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry, it was _urgent_ , I told you, Caleb was—”

“I don’t care!”

Edmund dragged his hands down his face in despair. He was late, oh God, he would be late even if he left at this very moment, and listening to Mary and Abraham bicker was most certainly _not_ aiding his productivity. Just the _sound_ of Abraham’s voice made him think—things he did not wish to think about. And filled him with a low and simmering distaste that he wished he could put out of his head.

And still there was so much to be done.

 _Just a little more_ —that had been his mantra throughout the afternoon. He’d work a little faster, stay a little later, he still had time, he could work past six-thirty and still have time, everything was already prepared for tonight, after all, all he had to do was run home and freshen up a bit before picking up Anna. But Whitehall had long since emptied now, Edmund and a few other sorry souls the only ones left still rattling around in the place. Had Richard gone home as well, Edmund may well have abandoned his post and his duties already.

But Richard still sat glowering in his oak-fronted office at the end of the hall, content to wait as long as necessary, it seemed, for Edmund to complete his task, and every time Edmund felt those blue eyes upon him in the hall, he again felt that unnerving suspicion that his career at Whitehall was in far greater jeopardy than he’d imagined.

 _Anna will understand_ , he assured himself, dropping another mountain of files on his desk. Papers flew free, and he groaned. _…That I value Richard Woodhull’s good opinion over hers. God in heaven_. Leave now, and his degree of tardiness would, in all likelihood, still fall within the bounds of “fashionable,” but wait much longer—

An indistinct half-shout that dropped into an angry hiss as Mary, ever conscious of appearances, hushed her husband. Desperate for reprieve, Edmund snatched up a coffee mug and bolted for the kitchen and sweet caffeine.

Abraham was still by Mary’s desk when he returned. Young Woodhull appeared as scrappy and unkempt as ever, that ridiculous hat that seemed permanently plastered to his head all askew, and was waving a manila folder about in exasperation.

“Mary, I will _be_ there, all right? I just got one errand first. One errand. Be home before you know it.” Edmund narrowed his eyes as the boy leaned in and gave Mary a peck. She did not seem the least bit mollified, but nor, he was somehow disappointed to see, did she resist. How small she seemed as she watched her husband depart: a slip of cream and pink fading into the office’s stark white walls. One hand on her forehead, she turned away, and did not seem to notice when a few sheets of paper fell from the stack beneath her arm.

The clock had not stopped ticking. Still, Edmund couldn’t ignore it. As Mary strode off, he picked up the papers and followed.

“Mrs. Woodhull?” When she turned, he held out his hand.

“Oh—thank you.” Mary’s eyes were dry, but her delicate little face reddened around the nose. He pretended not to notice when she sniffed.

“I would have thought you’d gone home to Thomas by now. Whatever are you doing here so late?”

“I could ask the same of you.”

His gaze flicked unbidden over her shoulder. Evidently, Mary did not need to turn to understand. From where they stood, he had a clear line of sight into Richard’s office, where the elder Woodhull sat engrossed in his work.

“He’s been frustrated lately,” Mary whispered, face downturned. “With many things. Abraham, mostly.” Edmund felt his cheek give an involuntary twitch as Mary breathed out something almost like a chuckle. “Not that I can fault him for that.”

“No. No, and I … ah. Would not fault _you_ , either. But I fear I may have played a role as well,” he admitted, and stole another glance at the clock. “For which I am now suffering the consequences of Richard’s displeasure. And very likely of someone _else’s_ displeasure, too, if I do not—”

“Whose?” asked Mary, because it was, after all, the perfectly logical and polite thing to ask. But Edmund’s momentum stumbled to a halt.

…It wasn’t _shame_. Nothing about Anna could ever bring him shame. Call it—kindness, then. To spare the feelings of a friend who carried enough on her slender shoulders already, particularly where her husband and his … affections were concerned.

At the very least, he need not mention names.

“…Ah. Well. You recall that I, um … That there was a lady I had—” The knowing, tight-lipped smile that slid across Mary’s lips made him squirm. He stole another glance at the clock. “We’re, um—meant to be having our first date tonight—but I’m growing worried that I’ll be—”

“And you’re still here?” Unhappily, he nodded, prepared to graciously accept her sympathies … which made it all the more startling when he received a furious snap instead. “What are you _thinking?_ I swear, I will never understand you—you _men!”_

“I’m only—Richard is—he all but said I’m expendable!” he sputtered, feeling utterly attacked by this creature half his size. “I _must_ finish this project, or—”

“Or you might have to find a new job. Trust the girl with the dead fiancé when I assure you that’s easier than finding a new lover.” Bitterness lay thick in Mary’s voice. But then she closed her eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was soft and steel.

“Family is _everything_ , Mr. Hewlett. Don’t become the sort of man—the sort of person, I mean—who forgets that.”

The next time he spoke to Abraham, Edmund suspected he was going to find remaining civil quite a trial indeed. The boy had far too great a talent for bringing tears to the eyes of women who deserved better.

“You know, my dear … It is … truly not fair. That you should be so young and yet have to be so wise.”

Mary’s was not a smile that spoke of any great comfort nor any resolution to her pain. But it was, in any event, a smile. He glanced behind her once more. “Richard—”

“I’ll distract him. I’m sure you’ll still catch grief for it later, but at least he won’t be able to stop you now.”

“ _Bless_ you. I’m in your debt.”

“Yes. You are.” A ladylike smirk. “I’ll think of something, I’m sure.”

Edmund surprised them both, then, by capturing Mary in a swift embrace that made her shoulders instantly go stiff. “You are—truly a good friend,” he blurted upon releasing her, hoping he hadn’t traumatized her too deeply. “And you, ah. Deserve very much to be happy. I … sincerely hope that you are.”

For a moment, he feared he’d paralyzed the poor girl. Slowly, however, a tiny smile appeared. “Thank you, Mr. Hewlett. You, too.”

From the safety of his office, Edmund watched Mary approach Richard’s. The instant Richard’s door shut, he tucked the last of his work under his arm and made his escape.

Not since the last time he’d sat a horse had he felt a rush quite like this: heart in his throat, hair blowing back as he ran pell-mell down the sidewalk, dignity thrown entirely to the wind. His bad foot began acting up before long, and by the time he reached his flat, it was an effort not to limp. Yet he cared not a whit for the pain. Even as he stumbled into and out of the shower and threw on a fresh set of clothes, the only thoughts in his mind were of her.

Anna in his arms, laughing. Anna in the blue predawn. Anna’s throat arced back against his shoulder, utterly exposed to him, _entrusted_ to him, and the sweet torment of her body beneath his as they lay under the willows last week with her fingers massaging his scalp and his chest pillowed on her breasts. The tension of her thigh so near his groin had been almost unbearable then and still haunted him now. And even though he _knew_ he’d done the right thing, not a night had passed since that he hadn’t wished he’d accepted her invitation upstairs.

 _If she asks me again_ , he thought as he hailed a cab outside his building. If she asked him tonight … God, he didn’t know what he’d say. It was all still so tremulous and new. They could ruin it, rushing into things. They could ruin it waiting. Maybe he’d ruin it before either of those things did, simply by choosing the wrong tea.

 _Let’s not get ahead of ourselves_ , he chided himself wryly; after all, there was still the whole evening ahead. Grinning, he leaned his head back against the seat of the cab and wondered if Anna were as excited as him.

 

\---

 

“You nervous?”

“Of course not.”

“Ya _sound_ nervous.”

“And you sound like an old-timey Nantucket whaler, but thankfully, appearances deceive.”

“Aw, c’mon! You can tell me! Haven’t I _always_ told you all the embarrassing shite I’ve done on dates?”

“ _Unsolicited_ , yes! Contrary to my very sincere desire _not_ to know about the things you do with your harpoon! Count your lucky stars I don’t return the favor. Besides…”

Anna leaned in close to do her eyeliner, her nose so near the mirror it left a ladylike smudge. “What’s there to be nervous about? It’s _Edmund_.” A low and pleasant flutter in her belly made it difficult to focus on not stabbing herself in the eye. “I see him every day.”

The evening had become an exercise in illusion. Her apartment bore the scars of it: garments discarded on the bed and floor and the backs of chairs; her bathroom countertop a fortress of hair dryer and curling iron and more cosmetics than she could count. Most of them, she’d fallen so far out the habit of using that she hadn’t even remembered they existed. And perhaps there was no point to it all anyway, not with Edmund—not when he’d already seen her red and raw with crying, nose dripping onto lips he’d kissed anyway; not when the only time he’d ever seen her painted and polished had been that thunderous night at the gala, and ever since had known her only as a creature of worn old sweaters and stained jeans, always damp with steam and sweat. But surely it was the … the thought that counted here. The show of _effort_. That she cared enough to try to be something _more_ for him, something refined and beauteous and pure—like he already thought she was. Like he deserved.

A lie, but a noble one. Wrapped up in silk and perfume and the hope of making him smile.

“No offense, but it’s an odd pairing, girlie, I have to tell you that,” crackled a boyish voice at her side. So long as she kept her eyes on the mirror, she could almost pretend that it truly was Caleb perched there, sitting on the countertop with his legs swinging and his eyes shining bright, and not merely her phone lying on the other side of the sink. Of course, she probably would’ve been wearing more than her underwear if that were the case, but after two decades of friendship, maybe they were past such concerns. “The two of ya, I mean. Give me the pick of every swinging dick and lovely lady in the world to find a match for you, and I’da never have called it. Christ, Annie—you could snap that fella in half.”

“Keep talking, and I’ll snap _you_.”

“Easy, easy. Didn’t mean nothing by it. I _like_ your li’l nerd boy! Just hope he can handle ya, is all.” She could just _hear_ the smirk in Caleb’s voice, could just picture him slouched on the rotting sofa in his Boston apartment with a beer balanced on his stomach and a shit-eating grin on his face. “I’d offer to come down and chaperone, but—”

“But you recognize that I’m a competent adult, capable of making these decisions myself?” Anna sighed, though she knew it was too much to hope.

“Who said it was _your_ honor I was worried about. Your boy Hewlett’s just a tender English rose, y’know, he don’t know how to protect himself from ladies like you. And he don’t really strike me as the sort who puts out on the first date.”

Anna set down her eyeliner and leaned back, studying her reflection with pursed lips. Nothing special, at the moment. Her usual boyshort panties, chosen for comfort above all else. A balconette bra that defied gravity a bit but didn’t pinch. Hair pinned up, but for a single lock left to curl alongside her neck.

One hand drifted to her stomach, just above the waistband of her panties. There was a heaviness low in her belly that refused to abate. It fluttered every time she thought of the way Edmund’s eyes crinkled when he smiled, and it swooped when she tried to imagine what his eyes might look like if he could see her now.

“Anna? You still there?”

“Yes. Yes, sorry, it’s just—” What did _he_ look like right now, she wondered, couldn’t _stop_ herself from wondering—was he getting ready now, too, perhaps in the shower, perhaps zipping up his trousers and thinking, unable to stop himself, of her—but through all of it, the images in her mind were anonymous things, faceless and indistinct.

She’d never so much as seen his collar undone. Face and hands: those were her only evidence that he even had _skin_. Perhaps she merely had his prudish fashion sense to blame, then, but … It was disquieting, was all. That she found it so difficult to imagine Edmund in any context related to sex.

 _It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything at all_.

“…It’s just. There was the museum, you know … And we’ve spent so much time together since. So.” She pinned back a flyaway lock of hair, but flinched at the lingering scent of lapsang on her hands. “…It’s not like it’s _really_ our first date.”

“Is that how ya see it.” Caleb’s voice was pure eyebrow-waggling. If only he really _were_ sitting on her vanity, so that she could push him off it. “Well well. Hope he’s on the same page. Where’s he takin’ ya, anyway?”

“I have no idea. Apparently, it’s a ‘ _surprise_.’” A slight smile as, of its own accord, her voice took on a distinctly received-pronunciation lilt on the last word. But the smile slipped as she looked in the mirror and saw all the different outfits discarded in the bedroom behind her. “Which is _awful_. Because, you know, I ask what I should wear, and he says, _Oh, nothing very special_ —and there’s that _very_ in there, Caleb. _Nothing very._ What the hell does _that_ mean? I mean, I hear _nothing special_ and think _second-best blue jeans_ , but _Edmund_ —I doubt he’s ever even _owned_ denim—so I don’t—”

“Jesus Christ, a man would think you were headed into battle, the way you’re stressin’. Look, you know I like to give you a hard time, but—it’s just a date, all right? You don’t _really_ gotta be nervous. Probably just, y’know, bird-sized portions at a pricey restaurant or something. Just smear on some lipstick and wear one-a them little black dresses—that’s what I’d do.” Though he chuckled, there was now that gentleness in his voice that people who didn’t know him well would never have expected. “Look, I, uh … I saw the way that sap looked at ya, back at the museum. You could show up in a trash bag, and he’d still look at you the same way.”

Softly, Anna smiled. If only Caleb were here. In person, maybe, when she could see his body language and he could see hers, she could tell him what was truly eating her, and _maybe_ he would understand.

But over the phone, how could she explain to someone so level-headed that her stomach had been in knots and her nerves on edge all day. Not because of the _date_ , per se … But because out of _all_ the teas she’d offered Edmund … All the beautiful and sweet-smelling and elegant varieties that should have suited him so well … He’d finally gone and liked the _one_ tea that, to her, would always mean … Abe.

And no matter how she scrubbed, and no matter her perfume, she couldn’t purge that scent of pine smoke from her skin.

Seven o’clock was fast approaching, and Edmund would be with it. Careful never to bring her hands too near her nose, she freed the dress she’d finally selected from its hanger and steered Caleb back to the original point of her call. “So are you coming or not? To the wake. Ben already said he would, if that helps.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there. Wouldn’t let you down, or Ben. He ain’t been to a funeral since Sam’s, you know? And Selah and him bein’ such friends and all … _Someone_ oughtta look out for our li’l soldier. Reckon you’ll be too busy with the family and lover boy to do a proper job.”

With her arms twisted behind herself and her body bent almost double as she tried to wrestle the zipper up her back, Anna froze. “Edmund won’t—I hadn’t—”

“What, he not wanna come?”

Slowly, Anna straightened. She bit her lip. “I didn’t think it would be … appropriate. To bring my, um. To bring him to Selah’s memorial service.”

“What, cause of the Strongs? Fuck ‘em, not your fault Selah left.” When she made only a worried hum in response, Caleb said lightly, “Hey, suit yourself, though. He probably won’t mind bein’ excluded from such an important moment in your life. And sure, might be he’d wanna comfort you, but we’ll just make sure he knows two strappin’ young lads like Ben and me are there to smother you with hugs and kisses and—”

“You just want him there so you can tease him, don’t you,” accused Anna with narrowed eyes.

“You bet your ass I do. Annie, all I had to do was say ‘fuck’ in front of that guy, and he blushed redder than a smacked arse.” There was deep satisfaction in Caleb’s voice. “I’m gonna make him do _shots_.”

Anna laughed. “You’re going to leave him _alone_ , or I’ll—”

Three sharp knocks at the door. Anna wheeled around.

“Shit, he’s early,” she gasped, because of _course_ he was—in the Hewlett household, being on time was probably the same as being late. “Just a minute!” she called toward the front door, then snatched up her phone. “Thanks, Brewster, love you, see you soo—”

“Hey! Come on, you make me sit through all that whining and leave like that? Give us a look, at least.”

Anna glanced toward the door and pursed her lips, but pressed the Facetime button anyway. A moment later, a pixelly face appeared on screen.

Caleb did not, as far as she could tell, have a beer balanced on his stomach, but he _was_ lying on the couch. Whether the beard would ever return to its full glory, she couldn’t say, but his face had already managed a handsome layer of scruff that, together with the flannel and the floppy hair, probably drove Boston’s hipster population wild. If that didn’t do the trick, the object tucked under his arm surely would.

“ _Tell_ me that’s not a ukulele.”

“Mandolin.” Grinning up at the phone, with his free hand he strummed a twangy chord. Then his gaze traveled down his screen. Feeling completely exposed and very much like a fool, Anna held her phone at arm’s length to give him a better view.

“…Well? What do you think?”

After an endless array of blouses, skirts, trousers, and boots, Anna had settled on a dress she’d found tucked so far to one side in her closet that she’d nearly forgotten about it. One she hadn’t worn, so far as she could recall, since happier times. The bodice was fitted, the skirt not quite long enough to brush her knees, and the fabric a blue that made her think of lying beneath an endless summer sky with the sun on her face and someone’s fingers entwined with hers.

Winter and spring had been bitter enough for she and Edmund both. They deserved a summer, at least.

Caleb whistled low.

“Lord a’ mercy, folks. Say a prayer for poor Eddie’s virtue. No way in hell it’s survivin’ the night.”

“Good-bye, Caleb,” Anna deadpanned, and ended the call before he could see her blush.

One last glance in the mirror, then. At her hair, which was behaving for the moment. At her dress, and how vividly the blue contrasted with the red flush atop her breasts. With a deep breath, she smoothed her hands down her bodice, tingling with the thought of how he’d flush at the sight of her—and with the tremulous hope that she might flush at the sight of him as well, and maybe even discover a new sliver of skin.

“Coming, coming!” she called, striding to the door as another round of knocks sounded. Her gait increased to a trot. “You’re early, you know! Did you miss me that—”

Anna flung open the door, beaming, skin hot and flushed. And felt like she’d stepped off a cliff.

“What are you doing here,” she whispered, hardly able to breathe. Abraham held up a manila folder in response.

“Promised I’d help you with the paperwork and all, didn’t I? ‘Bout Selah? You look nice,” he added, gaze flicking almost imperceptibly to her chest. Then he pushed his way inside her apartment so suddenly that she couldn’t even find the words to protest—not with the stench of pine smoke stuck in her throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aren't y'all happy to see Abe!!! I know y'all missed Abe. Probably almost as much as you missed Richard! Next time on LOA: the evening continues, featuring the rest of the things I promised [in this post.](http://calamity-bean.tumblr.com/post/146312893527/loa-16-is-on-its-waaaay)
> 
> Show quotes: The lapsang souchong's odor provokes the same reaction from Edmund as Abe's odor did in 3.01—specifically, that it "smells a fright." Perhaps we should open a window, indeed. And, of course, his insistence that nothing about Anna could bring him shame.


	17. Lapsang Souchong II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where there's smoke, there's fire. Things heat up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lapsang souchong theme continues! Apologies to those who find that tea less appealing nowadays. It really is a perfectly respectable beverage, Abe associations aside. As ever, thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear what you think about this chapter—I'm always open to feedback and suggestions. :)

“I ever tell you what your husband told me after Thomas died?”

Papers spilled from the folder as it landed on her coffee table. They fluttered to the floor before Anna could stop them, scattered behind Abe as he paced deeper into her apartment, his hands in his pockets and his head, for some reason, bowed.

“It was during the wake, I guess. You there, and Mary, and Ben and Caleb and the old man, all these—these _people_ , and half of them I don’t even know. All touching me, shaking my hand, talking at me, tellin’ me how sorry they are like it’s gonna make any difference, it was fucking _incessant_ —so I, you know … sneak out for a breath of fresh air. Some time with my thoughts. Only I get out there, and who should I run into but ol’ Selah Strong. And sure, I don’t hardly know him from Adam … more your and Ben’s friend than mine … but he offers his condolences and his cigarettes, so hey. For the moment, at least, we’re practically brothers.

“We were each a few smokes in, and a few beers, too, when he told me it wasn’t my fault.”

There was a electricity to Abe’s movements that she’d forgotten, somehow. And an overwhelming tactility in everything he did. As he strolled a circle through her living room, his boot heels scuffing the hardwood and his beanie lopsided over one ear, it seemed he couldn’t stop glancing around, couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t stop his fingers from trailing along the back of the sofa or darting out to touch, just for a moment, a picture frame or a discarded book. Just enough to knock it a hair askew; just enough to leave traces of himself all over. When was the last time he’d been in her home? Had he ever? Two quietly desperate years she’d spent curled against Selah’s side and wishing, in the ugliest corner of her mind, that her cheek could be resting on Abe’s chest instead. Now that he was here, however, all she could feel was an itch to burn everything he’d touched.

“Abraham, please.” His pacing unnerved her. As though there was a thread spooling from her belly to his feet, and each circuit he made around the room wound that wire tighter and tighter around her guts. “I appreciate the thought, but—you have to go. It’s not a good—”

“Only, it was my fault, wasn’t it?” Abe looked at her with vulnerability in the wideness of his eyes and an unexpected fragility in that seemingly cocksure smirk. “It was all my fault about Thomas, and—and maybe about Selah, too.”

She could just make out the framed photo he held, one that belonged on the bookshelf. Six smiling, sun-freckled kids. Two boys of different ages but with the same blue eyes and golden hair; another with dark and wild curls; a scrape-kneed girl with her arm around a short boy with sandy hair and a skinny face. And an older boy whose hair was slightly darker, perhaps, than his younger brother’s, but who shared the same keen eyes and narrow face. Six kids, two funerals, two little brothers who would never be the same.

Weighted down by nostalgia, Anna let the thread pull her into the room.

“Thomas was an officer, Abe. A _good_ one. He knew the risks.”

“Yeah, well, I reckon he didn’t know it’d be his own brother who caused the riot that killed him.”

When he shoved the picture back onto the shelf, it clattered and fell facedown.

Words. Too often, Anna felt the impulse toward words: to speak, to fling an insult or an argument or a quip—to let her tongue get away from her and dig her deeper in her own grave. Perhaps, if working for shit pay in the shop she used to own had taught her anything over the past few months, it was the wisdom of silence. Biting her lip, she glanced over her shoulder at the still-open door, half hoping to see Edmund there and half dreading it. Nothing. Perhaps she had grown too used, these past months, to Edmund and his openness, the way every emotion played so honestly over his face, and that was why she didn’t know what to do with Abe’s uncharacteristic rambling now.

Abraham’s back was to her, his beanie nearly falling off his head and his hand in his hair.

“It was … stupid. Pointless. When did a fucking street protest ever accomplish anything, right? We were wastin’ our time, Anna, all those days we spent holding signs and chanting slogans and thinkin’ obstructing traffic was ever gonna cause anything to really change. But that don’t change the fact that, that night, _I_ was the one who threw the first bottle, and _I_ was the one who climbed up on that flagpole and started shouting—and Thomas—”

That night. She hadn’t been there. The last days of her and Abe, when their romance was a worn and tattered thing held together by the electricity of his hands on her body and the desperate hope that they may still find that easy sweetness again, the effortless affection they’d had as kids, if only they held on. And they were getting too busy for all the protests anyway, too concerned with bills and work schedules on top of grades and classes, so she hadn’t been there—could not, in all honesty, remember where she had been. Only that Abe hadn’t been with her. He’d had studying to do, he’d said; and she’d never thought—

The thought of Abraham, alone, so stubbornly and resolutely alone in the world that he’d lied even to his lover and comrade about his plans for the night, clinging to a flagpole above a thronging mob and watching his own brother be swallowed by it was so cutting on so many different levels that Anna had to sit down to process it. She rested her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, struggling to contain her frustration and grief.

“You could have told me. Abraham, you _should_ have told me.”

“Nah. Nah, I shouldn’t’ve. Shouldn’t’ve told Selah, either, ‘cept I was too fucked up to stop myself. Better him than you, though. ‘Cause _you’d’ve_ been crushed, maybe, but Selah hardly knew Thomas. He just knew what it was like, being in those riots, and he knew what I felt for the cause. And he agreed with me that holding signs in the street was never gonna win us real change. Not on the level of the whole system. If we really wanted to fight injustice, to help the people on bottom, y’know, the people who really need helpin’, we had to think bigger, we had to think _smarter_ , we had to—to start working in the shadows, like. Instead of fighting all our battles on the field.”

A harsh laugh. “Me an’ Selah, we never got along about _anything_ else—but we agreed on that. And there’s, uh. There’s things, you know. About the sort of things Selah and I got mixed up in. That I probably should’ve told you long ago.”

Slowly, unwillingly, Anna lowered her hands. Her head remained bowed. Keep her head bowed, and it could be like one of those mornings when she lingered sweetly in the haze of half-sleep for minutes or even hours, drunk on sleep and sunshine and the ragged edges of her last dream. In those moments, everything seemed all right. But always, the dream faded eventually, and always, wakefulness finally knifed its way in with all its horrid clarity and truth.

“…Out of all the nights you could have done this, Abraham…”

“Right, sorry, is this not a fucking convenient time to open up to you about how I got my brother killed?”

“Actually! Actually, you know, it isn’t!” Her fists clenched in the pleats of her lovely sky-blue skirt, which she had _not_ meant to match Abraham’s eyes. “You had years to tell me! Years, but you—but you chose _tonight_ , and I … cannot think of this now. Not about Thomas and especially not about Selah. Please don’t make me think of him tonight.”

Abraham was squinting at her, that angry and incredulous squint that seemed much uglier on him than on Edmund. “Where’s your head at? This is … important shit, Anna, I’m tryin’ to tell you what Selah was into when he—left. This could still affect you, y’know? And trust me when I say you don’t want the authorities beatin’ you to the punch here. I mean, hell, Anna, I know we didn’t part on the best terms last week, but—”

“This has _nothing_ to do with that. This has nothing to do with _us!_ How can you come here, uninvited, and just—throw this at me so casually, Abe? So unthinkingly? Once you tell me, I can never _not_ know it, so what am I supposed to do with what I know?”

“ _Fight_ ,” he said, as though it were the only and most obvious answer. “Like you used to, Anna. Like _we_ used to, only in a way that might actually make a difference. We’ve still— _Selah’s_ still—got friends who could … look out for you, now. Who could help you, and whom you could help. So that Selah didn’t die in vain.”

“And if I’m weary of fighting?” she murmured to her hands.

“ _Weary?_ Don’t you care anymore about the cause?”

“Of course I care—”

“Don’t you wanna live in a world with freedom, with equality, with some measure of justice? Where everything doesn’t boil down to the rich gettin’ richer and the poor gettin’ poorer and ordinary people, like _you_ , losin’ their homes and their businesses to the lawyers and banks?”

“I gave,” she managed through gritted teeth, “ _so_ much to that fight—but now I—”

“Don’t you care anymore about anyone other than yourself?”

“I will _always_ care!” Her fingers were tangling in her hair before she remembered how long it had taken to pin. “But tonight is—right now, I just have to—if there’s even a chance that I can claim one tiny iota of happiness for _myself_ , Abraham. That’s all I’m asking for tonight. Do I not deserve even that?”

“What is it with you and _tonight_ , Anna, it ain’t like this is a time-sensitive deal. What, you got a date or somethin’?”

The scoff that harshened the word showed precisely what he thought of that.

Anna let her silence be her answer. She rose with all the dignity she could muster and headed toward the bathroom without looking at him, brushing back the tumbling strands of her hair.

“…Shit.” The word was curiously soft. Like Abe was nearly too shocked, perhaps, to speak. “Huh. Well. Right back on that horse.”

Her shoulders stiffened at his tone. Edmund, she imagined, would counsel restraint here. Edmund would put his shields up, pause to consider his options, and would probably _not_ lead with a fist to the jaw. Only that enabled her to hold her tongue as she parked herself before the vanity once more and began repinning her hair.

“So, uh—”

Footsteps behind her, their gait lazy. Springs creaking as he took a seat on the side of her neatly made bed, utterly heedless of all the wrinkles he caused. The angle of the mirror was such that she could see his reflection rubbing the back of his head in a nonchalant way that matched infuriatingly well with that cheery, probing tone of voice:

“Who’s the lucky guy, then? Not anybody I know?”

Anna’s first instinct was to lie, and the realization of it froze her with one pin halfway into her hair and more held between her teeth. She met her reflection’s eyes in the mirror, and all she felt was shame.

Not … because of _him_. Never because of _him_ , but just because … It was one thing to tell Caleb, or Abigail, or Ben. She’d entrusted each of them with her heart countless times before. But there were people who couldn’t be trusted not to fumble such fragile things, and yes, _her_ heart could probably take another fall … but she hated to think of endangering Edmund’s.

Almost as much as she hated the thought of him ever thinking her ashamed.

“You do, actually,” said her reflection, in a voice that seemed to come from somewhere far distant. “Know him.” That brave, worry-lined woman in the mirror took a shuddering breath. “Edmund Hewlett?”

For a moment, there was silence.

A chuckle. Soft at first, scattered. But by the time she dared check his reflection, Abe was laughing in earnest.

“Christ, Anna, and here I thought you’d lost your sense of humor. Oh, that’s fucking rich. Look, you don’t wanna tell me, you don’t have to tell me, all right? _Hewlett_ —god, there’s a laugh.”

“You’ll have to explain the joke,” she snapped, hands clenched on the edge of the Formica countertop. Abe’s chuckles ebbed. His hand, halfway through raking back hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in a few days, paused. Sharp face and sharp eyes watched her too keenly.

“…Anytime you wanna say you’re kidding, Anna.”

His reflection kept trying to catch her gaze. She looked away. Counting her breaths until the inevitable—

“Oh god, _Anna_ , you cannot be _ser_ —”

“Edmund’s been helping me with sorting out Selah’s affairs, by the way, so your dropping by was— _considerate_ , but unnecessary, thank you,” she murmured. “Whatever you _know_ , either he’ll figure it out, or it can wait. And I—I expect he’ll be here any moment, so you really have to go.”

Behind her, Abe stood and began pacing again. Not the loose circles of before, but sharply, rapidly, in a short pattern the length of her bed. With every stride, she braced herself for the explosion—but when it came, his voice was searching instead of aggressive, confused more than angry, a murmur rather than a shout.

“I don’t get it. I don’t get it, Anna—what’s your plan here? So, you … what. You let ol’ Mr. Hew take you out to dinner every now and again … Let him steal a kiss or two, let him think you’re into it … Then, what, once he’s all comfortable and you’ve got enough dirt, you—”

Hair pins tumbled from her hand as she whirled. “My _plan?_ ”

“I’m just tryin’ to figure out what your game is here.” He stopped, innocent-eyed, and spread his hands. “This is some sort of revenge thing, right? For what he did to your shop? ‘Cause Anna, I’d help you with that if you asked, you know I would—but there’s gotta be better ways to go about it than this.”

Abraham’s eyes were as blue as they’d ever been. As wide as they’d ever been, just like when they were children and something as simple as watching Thomas play baseball could make him marvel. But now there was a sharpness to that boyish face she hadn’t noticed before, something hollow-cheeked and raw that hurt to see.

“When did you get like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like the sort of man whose first thought is that his friend, his—his _oldest_ friend—has made herself a whore rather than that she might _possibly_ like a man who isn’t him,” she managed, voice hard, and his face likewise hardened in response.

“I don’t know. When did you stop throwing drinks in Hewlett’s face and start pushing up your tits for him? _Anna!”_ His footsteps snapped on the hardwood behind her as she stormed back into the living room, her head filled with a pressure that clouded her thinking and made her desperate for escape. But in an apartment as small as hers, there was only so far she could go. “That man—is the fucking laughingstock of Whitehall, you should hear the shit people say about him behind his back! He’s a—a taskmaster, and a buffoon—”

“He is a fine lawyer, and a gentleman!”

“He’s ridiculous! A stick-up-his-ass old snob who lucked his way into his job—not to mention that he signed away your shop!”

“And you are not half the man he is!”

For just an instant, a flicker of genuine hurt cut through his face. Yet she couldn’t stop.

“At least Edmund is honest with me! At least he has the grace to admit when he’s been wrong! When was the last time you—why do you even—”

Fingertips pressed over her lips, eyes scrunched; at the scent of pine smoke on her hand, the urge to gag strangled her throat.

“Anna,” she heard, and her name said so softly his lips was an unexpected needle in her heart. With her eyes shut, he sounded too much like the boy he’d loved.

“…It’s not just about decency, y’know. Or … thinkin’ someone deserves your kindness because they’ve been nice to you when you needed it. That’s a start, maybe, but it won’t be enough, it won’t last. It’s about passion, and desire, and—and you can’t _fake_ those, no matter how good a person it’s for. You can’t tell your body who it wants.” Footsteps toward her, slow and measured as a hunter charming its prey. “So. You really trying to tell me that when you’re lyin’ awake at night, your body wants _him_.”

Through the wet blur of her eyelashes, his silhouette blurred before the overhead light. “Why do you even care?”

“…I don’t want you making my same mistakes.”

Anna was already wiping the back of her hand against her eyes when she remembered her mascara. Mary would never forget such a thing; had _not_ forgotten, she recalled now, even at Thomas’s funeral, where no one could possibly have blamed her for it. A petite porcelain doll all in black, her hands clasped primly before herself and her narrow chest trembling as tears ran clear down her blotchy cheeks and her waterproof makeup remained pristine. Had there ever been a time, she wondered, when Abe had lain awake with his hand down his boxers and his thoughts full of pale limbs and strawberry hair? Had he ever woken in sunlight so warm that, for a moment, he’d thought it his wife’s lips? He must have; not for very long, perhaps … But surely, in those first grief-sweet days of their marriage, her pain and his pain must have bound their hearts together for a time. Just long enough to trap them. They should have known better than to confuse the need for comfort with love for the first person who offered it to them.

She wondered if Mary had cried into his shoulder before their first kiss, then lain beneath him under the willows, under the stars, and deluded herself into thinking that the sweetness of his body against hers had anything to do with the fact that it was _his_ body, when it could just as easily have been anyone else’s.

A smear of black on the back of her hand. Anna sniffed.

“Altruism’s a bad look on you, Abe. Never seems to fit.” She lifted her head and stared him down with smudges around her eyes and her mouth set into a hard line. “Just admit that you screwed up your own marriage so bad that you can’t stand the thought of me being happy while you’re not.”

Closing the gap between them, Abe hissed, “What I can’t stand is the thought of you being so _desperate_ for affection that you’d beg for that frog-faced bastard’s cock the way you used to beg for mine.”

Even after that, she supposed, Edmund would probably counsel restraint.

Of course, Edmund wasn’t there.

So this time, there was nothing to stop Anna from punching her ex-fiance in the face.

 

\---

 

The sight of the open door brought Edmund up short.

Anna’s flat was not like his own. Her _neighborhood_ , alas, was not like his own, and while he would grant it was no syringe-strewn slum, it could nonetheless be … rougher around the edges than he would have preferred for her. Hence his habit of walking her home when he visited the shop at night, though hell would have to freeze very cold indeed before he dared tell her that. Usually he left her outside the building, but once or twice, in this past week, their conversation had carried him upstairs and as far as her own door. Even those few times had been enough to accustom him to the fact that he couldn’t expect the halls to be as peaceful as in his own building. The walls were thinner, the units pressed closer together, the occupants less … refined.

Perhaps that was why he’d assumed the raised voices he’d heard on his way up the stairs were from some other unit. Some other occupant. Until he turned from the stairwell onto her floor and saw light spilling from Anna’s open door into the hall.

Edmund’s heart stopped. He rushed forward, pulse racing with dread at the thought of burglary or home invasion or—

Edmund stumbled to a halt in the doorway, blinking. Suddenly the prospect of dealing with burglars seemed quite inviting indeed. At least he might have known what to _do_ in such a situation, which was more than he could say at the moment, as he stood watching his beloved do her level best to kick young Woodhull in the shin.

They were at it like—like _children_ , for heaven’s sake, grappling and pushing and clawing at one another the way Edmund, from the safety of only-childhood, imagined siblings probably fought. They were bickering like siblings as well, but in such a muddle of words that he could barely make out so much as a phrase. As he watched, Abraham’s trainer got caught behind Anna’s heel, and the two tumbled down with Anna landing sort of astride the boy, which only gave her better leverage for slapping. In fact, judging by the way Abraham kept guarding his nose, Edmund suspected that, despite his instinctive impulse to defend his damsel, Anna was … not, perhaps, the combatant in more distress.

“Ah,” said Edmund blankly. Neither seemed to notice. Anna’s back was to the door, and Abraham, trapped between her and the sofa, was somewhat preoccupied with shielding his face. “ _Ah_ ,” he repeated, louder. “Forgive the interruption, but—if we could just—oh, dear—”

Rushing forward, Edmund caught Anna around the waist before she could pry Abraham’s wrists away from his face, yanked her back, and, overbalanced, collapsed to the floor with her bundled in his lap.

Instinctively, perhaps, Anna thrashed at first; “It’s me, darling, it’s only me,” he whispered rapidly, and was rewarded with an elbow in the ribs. Edmund buried his wince in her hair and _shhh_ ed her till she stilled. Her face whipped toward his. Hair mussed, color high, her breasts heaving rapidly above his arms—under other circumstances, it was precisely the state of _dishabille_ he might have _dreamed_ of having Anna in on his lap. Once she saw him, her eyes fluttered closed. His lips came to rest against her cheek as, together, they caught their breath.

In the corner of his eye, a shadow moved. Abraham stood up just enough to sink onto the couch, his hand still over his nose. Staring down at them with his cheeks not flushed, but pale.

“Good evening, Abraham,” said Edmund, very much as though they were sitting down to one of Richard’s dinner parties and very much _not_ as though he were sprawled on the floor, restraining a woman from murder.

“…Hewlett.”

“I was just speaking with your wife.” Though his arms remained crossed over Anna’s stomach, he knew, and hoped she knew, that the slightest pressure from her now would be enough to break his hold. She made no move to do so, however, keeping her face turned firmly away from Abraham. The sight of bare and shapely legs curled alongside his made him realize how much her skirt had ridden up in their fall—which was probably not the sort of data he ought to be processing with her seated where she was and with their current audience, well … existing. Edmund cleared his throat. “Mary seemed very eager to be getting home; she mentioned the two of you were planning on a nice dinner?”

Abraham lowered his hand. Blood tinged his nostrils; Edmund’s jaw twinged in sympathy. Well—a _bit_ of it, at least.

“…Yeah, well. Wouldn’t want to keep her waiting, would I? Just had to drop a couple things off.” Edmund highly disapproved of the languid way the boy unfolded from the couch, even more than he disapproved of the perpetual lopsidedness of that damnable gray hat. Most of all, he disapproved of the way Abraham directed his next statement. “Any chance I could have a word with Anna before I go?”

Edmund squinted at the boy. “…I can’t imagine why you’re asking _me_.”

What that twitch in Woodhull’s expression meant, he couldn’t begin to guess. Edmund turned his attention to a worthier object. Tense jaw, the sweep of her eyelashes, brow furrowed and drawn—from this angle, he could see only a sliver of Anna, veiled behind fine drifts of hair. Her chin lifted, and the half-turn of her head brought her lips against his.

Softly, but very deliberately, Anna kissed him. For the first time, he found himself unable to sink into it, too conscious of Abraham’s eyes.

With her lips still brushing his: “Wait here?”

 _Disappointment_ , thought Edmund a few minutes later, perusing the titles on Anna’s bookshelves. She’d mixed her DVDs in with the actual books, and not, so far as he could tell, according to any civilized laws of alphabetization, chronology, or topic. Wearily he debated whether he’d have time to get a start on organizing it all. Anything to distract him from the voices on the other side of her bedroom door.

“Don’t you _ever_ —how dare—”

“—your own good here, all right, I’m tryin’ to—”

The door had caught in the doorjamb when she’d flung it shut—had failed to entirely close. A sliver of a gap remained. Most of their words were indistinct, jumbled, but every once in awhile, a few made it through.

And _disappointment_ , yes: that was something _near_ to this feeling, something _like_ this hollow, resigned emotion he was attempting to quantify, but not _quite_ the right flavor or shade. Some part of him, certainly, had hoped that nothing would ruin tonight. And some part of him had hoped that she would refuse to say anything further to Abe. Some part of him even wished she hadn’t kissed him, not … like that. Like she were trying to prove a point.

Glancing up at the next shelf, he found himself eye to eye with a picture of a handsome but unsmiling man with dark hair and blue eyes. Edmund’s eyes narrowed. Beside the man, her shoulders encircled by his arm, a younger Anna—her cheeks a little fuller, her brow a little less lined—smiled at the camera. It was the same small and closed-mouth way she smiled when Mr. De Young was griping at her or a customer making a fuss about their five-hundred-shot soy latte with foam.

With a sigh, Edmund turned away.

Instead, he turned his attention to the living room, the kitchen, realizing as he did that this was the first time he’d actually crossed the threshold into Anna’s home. Sometimes it was easy to imagine that she lived at the shop, he’d come so thoroughly associate her image and her scent with that deep, narrow room perpetually bitter with coffee grounds and tea. With every detail he absorbed, from the titles on the bookshelf to the particular angle of the sofa relative to the coffee table and telly, he wondered which had been her doing and which Selah’s. Perhaps some things had been her husband’s at the beginning but were being assimilated, now, as Anna adapted to widowhood, like briars reclaiming a cottage abandoned in the woods.

The fixed-gear bicycle leaning beside the door, its frame a robin’s-egg blue: _that_ he was fairly certain was hers. And the artwork over the fireplace, too: framed prints of beautiful yet eerie scenes that his memory supplied as Rackham, Beardsley, Millais. Of the row of potted plants along the windowsill, he couldn’t be sure. He smiled when he first saw them, feeling warm and reassured of his plan, for the plants were all so very _Anna_ : soothing things, leafy, green, beautiful in their understated way, mint and lemongrass and other herbs he had so often smelled on her hands. But then he recalled that it was Selah, after all, who’d gotten her into the tea business to begin with. Glancing back at the bookshelf, Edmund pursed his lips. His gaze wandered back into the living room and fell on the papers scattered over the coffee table and across the floor.

He wouldn’t have. Had he not recognized Whitehall’s letterhead on the pages. _That_ was the only thing that spurred him, after a glance around the corner at the not-quite-closed door, to select a random page.

The vast majority were nothing of great interest. Tax records, leases, contracts; a copy of Selah’s will; very much the same paperwork he had been wrangling to help Anna wrap up her husband’s affairs. Edmund shuffled them back into order as best he could. None of it anything that a second-year law student couldn’t have been tracked down with some help from Westlaw or Lexis. Still, he’d done a thorough job, young Woodhull, and Edmund had to admit that Abraham might actually make for a _passable_ legal professional someday, if he ever managed to saunter his way through the Bar.

But then he came to a page that bore neither letterhead nor any data of the sort Edmund was used to. Only a series of grainy images that he eventually realized, thanks to the time stamps, were frames from security footage. Of _Whitehall_.

Brow furrowing, Edmund leaned in.

The office appeared empty but for a lone shadow tracing a path through the halls. Though Edmund brought the paper within an inch of his nose, squinting as he traced the figure’s progress through the series of frames, he couldn’t make out any distinguishing features—only the curve of a profile here, the hint of a chin there, a collar, an arm, a blur.

He had just set that page aside and was starting on the next—no letterhead here either, only long columns of—of phone numbers, he realized; a log of incoming and outgoing calls; and then a transcript of what appeared to be e-mails or texts, among which one startlingly familiar name caught his eye—

When the door to Anna’s bedroom opened with a clatter.

“Fine. Fine, that’s the way you want it, you can forget I fucking offered! Get back to me when you find your spine.”

Abe’s voice was a hiss. Edmund stuffed the papers back into their folder, shoving them in with little regard for order—but hesitated when only the ones not on letterhead remained. Then, as he heard the first angry footsteps heading into the room, he dropped the folder haphazardly on the table and slipped the loose papers under the cushion of the couch. By the time Abe rounded the corner, Edmund was standing by the window, regarding the view.

A soft laugh from Abraham. Hollow and short. Edmund frowned toward the glass, but did not turn as Abraham’s washed-out reflection snatched up the folder from the table, then sauntered, all loose-limbed, youthful arrogance, toward Edmund himself.

“Funny, ain’t it, Mr. Hew. The way these things go. And here I thought she hated your guts.”

“Funny,” Edmund echoed noncommittally. Hands in his pockets, he turned just enough to face the other man. The flush on Abraham’s face was all the more reason to keep his own voice level and calm. “Give my best to Mary, Abraham. I hope you have a very lovely evening indeed.”

Abraham smiled. A taut and cocky smile that lingered too long and too stiffly and that Edmund did not trust at all. The boy rocked a lazy half step toward the door. Then, sudden as a snake striking, he strode into Edmund’s space instead, startling Edmund into stumbling back a step, cornered.

“Have fun on your pity date, Hewlett. But I’d remember, if I were you—”

His voice dropped to a whisper as he leaned close.

“Might be she can forgive you for ruining her life. Hell, maybe she can even bring herself to let you fuck her, long as she keeps those eyes shut real tight. But I’ve known Anna my whole life. And you are fooling yourself, my friend, if you think you’re the sort of man she will ever be able to love.”

Edmund didn’t breathe. If he breathed, his chest was so tight that he would surely either shatter or explode, and the last thing Anna needed just now was more shouting. So he swallowed the hard knot of his anger, though holding it in made him sick, till the only places it showed were in the narrowness of his eyes and the sharp twitch in his cheek. Smiling pleasantly, Abe leaned back. Then he lifted the folder and doffed Edmund a salute before striding with infuriating composure to the door.

It was several moments before Edmund, with a tremor, released his breath. And several more of standing with fingers pinching the bridge of his nose and his head bowed, inhaling deep and shaking breaths, before the nausea subsided enough for him to realize that Anna had yet to emerge from her room.

Sundown burned at the window on the far side of Anna’s bed. It glowed in the gauzy curtains and glazed the room with wedges of gold framed between slices of fathomless shadow. Surrounded by yellows and browns, Anna’s dress seemed impossibly blue, a cold center of stillness amid the shifting light. She slumped on the edge of her bed, bent double. Though her forehead was braced against her fingertips when he entered, she looked up at the sound of the door.

Despite the wetness of her eyes, however, hers was not an expression that made him rush to comfort. It was too hardened for that, too much comprised more of fury than of sorrow. In the rigid line of her shoulders and the veined clench of her fists, he remembered that she was a warrior at heart, his Anna, and that she had bared her fangs at him long before she ever entrusted him with her tears.

Silence.

“I can’t believe you wanted to marry that man,” he said abruptly, because he was an idiot, presumably, and because he was still too tight with anger to care. Anna gave a weary sigh.

“And here I was just thinking how you’re nothing like him.”

“That’s not—it is not the same. My objection is nothing intrinsic to his person, it’s only—the way he talks to you, Anna! The way he talks _about_ you. That is not the way a man speaks of a woman he loves, it simply isn’t. I should have—”

“Edmund, I have been dealing with Abraham my entire life, _I_ am not the one who needs defending from him. You have no idea what he’s—” Midway through rubbing her nose, she recoiled from her own hand. Her gaze turned toward the ceiling, her neck carving a compelling line from her slumped shoulders down to her breasts and up to the little twist of her frown. “Any chance we could just—forget this ever happened?”

The very notion made his jaw twitch. Her eyes were so hollow, however, that he felt his shoulders soften.

“Forgive me.” As she turned to him, he managed a reassuring smile. “Got tied up at work. I’m so sorry I’m late.”

That angry expression cracked. Sighing, she pushed her hair out of her face, only for it to fall back down as soon as she lowered her hand. “It’s not … You … aren’t the one who should be apologizing. Edmund, I’m so s—”

“Yes, it really should be Abraham, shouldn’t it?” he cut in before she could _dare_ blame herself. “Though I suspect contriteness is something of a recessive trait among the genus Woodhull. I’d say I’ve no idea where he gets it, but then … I work with Richard.”

That won a chuckle. At last, Edmund felt it safe to approach, and to sit beside her, gently taking her hand.

“Should I ask?” he murmured. He wasn’t certain he wanted to know. Nor was he certain he could bear not to. “What he did to upset you? That is—if he made you feel in any way … threatened, please—but otherwise, what I mean is … Would you like to—”

“No. To either. It was all just his usual bullshit anyway.” A deep breath, and then a rush. “He wasn’t always like this. He _isn’t_ always like this. He used to bring out the best in me. He used to make me feel—like the brightest thing in the world. But now, he—somehow, he … brings out the worst. As I do, I think, in him.” Her throat worked hard; her gaze fell to her lap. “I never wanted you to see me like this. I wanted everything to be _perfect_ tonight. Now—” A bitter little chuckle as she gestured to the entirety of herself. “ _Now_ look at me.”

Edmund took in her downcast eyes and the smudge of lipstick at the corner of her mouth where she’d wiped it. He took in her hair, stubbornly mussed as ever, and her dress, the skirt rumpled and one strap pulled low over her shoulder. He took in the redness of her shallow-swooped nose and the shadows of smeared mascara around her eyes. Helplessly, he smiled.

“Darling, I _am_ looking.”

Anna looked up. For several moments, they simply held each other’s gaze, silent, Edmund’s smile mellowing but not dying, Anna looking as though she believed she understood his meaning but feared to trust it. He felt himself be caught in the orbit of her eyes and did not try to escape.

With no warning, Anna smiled. A small thing, but true, and it grew wider till she had to stop herself with teeth on her lip.

“ _What_. What is that _look_.”

“Were you in a hurry coming here?”

“Ah—um. Yes, actually. As I said, I was held up at Whitehall, and I … Why do you ask?”

“Your hair’s still wet. And you misbuttoned your shirt.” Cool fingers at the corner of his jaw, lifting his chin. Gentle pressure guided his face to the side, where he found himself reflected in a mirror in the adjacent lavatory. Anna was watching the mirror as well. Her reflection’s hand slid down to play at his collar, which he cringed to see was indeed mismatched by one button. The points of his collar stuck out at uneven angles above his tie.

“ _Ha_ —heavens. Forget my own head next. Um, pardon, I’ll just—”

He’d intended to go off and address the matter in private, of course. But fingertips against his heart stopped him before he could move away.

“…May I?” she said, and he blinked. Then, already fighting a blush, gave a tentative nod.

The sunset made Anna look like a Rembrandt come to life. They stood face to face at the side of her bed, chiaroscuro brilliance limning one side of her body and casting the other in shadows that pooled in the dip of her collarbone and the philtrum of her lips. He couldn’t stop his gaze from following those shadows down to the low neckline of her bodice as she unbuckled his belt.

The snap of a button, and then she was pulling his shirttails free of his trousers, her movements slow and measured and calm. It seemed an utter injustice that her expression could remain so composed when all his awareness was so electric with the sensation of her fingers so perilously low on his stomach. As though she did this every day. Perhaps she used to do this for her husband: help him dress, help him button his shirt, tie his tie. Not because he needed it but simply for the excuse of touching and tending to and being of use. Starting with the misaligned button at the bottom, she began working her way up his chest.

“It’s supposed to be good luck, you know,” she told him quietly. Cool air shivered over his stomach where the front of his shirt hung open. His neck, however, felt hotter and hotter as more and more of his skin was bared to Anna’s eyes. At his sternum, she stopped and reached for his tie. “Doing the buttons wrong. As long as you don’t do it on purpose.”

She loosened the knot with the unmistakable ease of practice and let the ends of his tie drape over his shoulders. Edmund swallowed as she moved on to the final buttons at his throat.

“And if you should make an error now? Is that luck for the wearer, then, or for the buttoner?”

“Both, I hope.” One more tiny snap, and at last he stood utterly exposed before her, bared from navel to throat.

Anna paused. Though she still held loosely to either side of his shirt, he was unnerved to realize that she had no intention of buttoning it just yet—more interested, it seemed, in letting her gaze rove slow and lingering over his chest. His chest, which was. Well. There was nothing _wrong_ with his chest. It was quite an ordinary torso, really: not muscular but certainly not fat; a ripple of ribcage showing along his sides; a trace of hair starting just above his waistband and venturing down. A bit too pale, perhaps. A bit too smooth and shapeless. Nothing to snap a photo of for the local fireman’s calendar, but surely it wasn’t so bad as to deserve Anna’s frown of intense, brow-knitted concentration, either. She moved one hand to his sternum, and merely the brush of her fingertips there felt like a scalpel ready to slit him open and let spill out all his embarrassment and inadequacy and shame.

“You’re always in your armor.” Her voice was a murmur. Her thumbnail rasped against his skin as she began massaging small circles over his heart. “Long sleeves, blazer and necktie, collar buttoned all the way up the throat.” Never breaking contact with his skin, one hand moved to the base of his throat. “I’ve never even seen this much of your neck.”

“Nothing much to see, really. Just your standard-issue neck,” he said in a voice that strove for normalcy, wondering what could possibly account for the way she were looking at his throat. As though it … were worth looking at at all. Anna hummed.

“No. It’s yours.”

The way she said this suggested it was far more important than Edmund could understand.

Then her lips brushed his throat, barely a featherweight of pressure, pressing soft square over his Adam’s apple. The breathy, “ _Oh_ ,” that escaped him was not something he could help; nor was the way his hands clutched at her hips and clung there as though they were the only thing keeping him from drowning. He pulled, or she pushed, he couldn’t be certain which, only that by the time her mouth had moved to the side of his neck, he was holding her hips flush against his own and pressing his nose into the flushed flesh of her cheek. Flyaway hairs stuck to his lips as he tried to focus on breathing—in and out, in and out—as though her tongue weren’t sliding hot over his skin—as though she weren’t alternating between soothing kisses and sucking hard on his pulse.

In and out as their hips swayed together, a liquid pressure. In and out even as her hands released his neck and slid down his chest so agilely that gooseflesh shivered in their wake. In and out with her palm trapped between their stomachs, her hand rising and falling with the heaving of his breath. Cold air as her skin left his, and he realized, after a few moments, that she had begun rebuttoning his shirt. He wondered how she could possibly know she was even doing it right.

Once she had him closed up as high as his collarbone, her hands slipped around to his back. She smoothed his shirt down his scapulae, down his ribs, down to the small of his back. And then—once again, Edmund dared not breathe—below his belt and down over his—

 _She’s tucking in my shirt_ , he reminded himself, face burning, as Anna smoothed the fabric down between his trousers and his pants. Very good of her. Very considerate, to be conscious of not leaving wrinkles. That was a responsibility she took very seriously indeed, it seemed, for she did … quite a thorough job of it. The sides next, her mouth still working a rhythm on his neck that he couldn’t have escaped if he’d wanted, and then her hands surfaced long enough to gather the front of his shirt. Anna slipped her hands beneath his belt once more and held them there, motionless, her palms pressed flat against his boxers at the very tops of his thighs.

Her thumbs were hooked into the hollows at the vee of his pelvis. If she only slid either hand an _inch_ toward the other … Eyes closing, he let his lips drag down her cheek and battled the urge to guide her hands with his own.

With a gentle touch of her chin, Anna nudged his face around. Their kiss was deep and slow—the sort of kiss that, in his admittedly limited experience, usually led to other things. Edmund struggled to remind himself that they’d an evening planned, that they’d hours together still ahead, but with her palms a steady pressure on either side of his fly, it was becoming difficult enough to remember his own name.

Right at the last instant, the tongue turned to teeth. Anna nipped at his lip just hard enough to make him gasp, and was smiling when she leaned back.

“ _Ow_ ,” he muttered, attempting his most sour expression. Though she smiled with utter confidence, it was a comfort to see that her face appeared nearly as afire as his felt.

“Oh, you poor thing.”

“More fool _you_ , madam, to try and kill me when I’ve promised you a date. Don’t you at least want to get your full use of me first?”

“I suppose we _should_ be getting on,” she sighed, and (to his disappointment and utter relief) withdrew her hands. Neck still burning, he took over refastening his fly before she could, lest he risk _true_ embarrassment. Instead, Anna reached for the still-open buttons at his throat.

Edmund caught her hand. “Ah—I thought perhaps I might … leave those. If you prefer?”

Anna appear taken aback, though not, he hoped, in a bad way. She let her fingertips tiptoe over his exposed collarbone as, slowly, she grinned. “Why, Edmund _Hewlett_. What _would_ your mother say?”

“Mother never need know. But only the top two, mind,” he added severely. “I do have _standards_.”

“Two whole buttons. Gracious me.” But her smile wavered. “I _prefer_ that you be comfortable. And you might not want people to—um—” Biting her lip, she touched the side of her own neck. Not till he felt a lingering throb where her mouth had been on his own neck did he blushingly understand.

“ _Ah._ I—oh, to hell with propriety. Let them see. What do I care if they're jealous.”

The way she giggled, then, like a girl fifteen years younger, and was still giggling as she excused herself to salvage her makeup, convinced him that for her sake, at least, he could pretend to truly have forgotten about Abe. For the evening, at least. He draped his necktie neatly over the back of the sofa, to be retrieved at a later time, and forced himself not to think of the papers hidden beneath the cushion on the left-hand side.

There would be plenty of time on the morrow to wonder what Abraham was up to, or why he should be carrying anything bearing the Culper name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Show quotes! Part of Anna and Abe's argument is modeled directly off Anna's dialogue with Simcoe in 2.06, specifically, "He is a fine officer and a gentlemen!" and, "And you not half the man he is!" Abe gets to play Simcoe's role here, obviously, and for that I sort of apologize to Abe fans and sort of also apologize to Simcoe fans. The other directly borrowed line is Edmund's, from 3.04: "Oh, to hell with propriety."
> 
> Gonna level with y'all: I've long since had an idea of what the babes will be doing / where they will be going on their first date, but I'm no longer particularly enthralled with it. In fact, lack of enthrallment is part of what held up chapter 16 so much. So If you've got a fun date idea for these two or a first-date destination you'd love to see, I'm open to suggestions, and naturally I'll give you a shout-out in the notes.


	18. Lotus Blossom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> …I am so fucking nervous about this chapter. Uh. Here it is!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to a-carnie-and-a-cop, KnowledgeNeek, MercuryGray, and hey-there-bret in thanks for all their suggestions about the babes’ date (I don’t want to spoil the chapter by being too specific, but I took inspiration or motivation from several of your thoughts, and I really appreciate the input!). Also dedicated to capetian, because harpsichord. Well, piano. Close enough.
> 
> Lotuses are used to make a few varieties of tea, including trà sen, a Vietnamese green tea. This particular tea does not involve steeping the lotus itself, but using it to impart fragrance to the leaves.

_This man_ , thought Anna, wine-warm and languid, her head spinning with scents of juniper, of rosehips, of the night-blooming jasmine just opening its bells at her side— _this man_ , she thought, _should not exist_.

Already, her lips were sticky with her second glass of shiraz. It made her feel syrupy all over, in a pleasant way, deep deep inside her belly and all along the undersides of her breasts. Koi nibbled at her toes as she cooled her feet in their pond. This, she suspected, was almost certainly against the rules. Arboretum staff probably did not want their fishes catching who-knows-what from the callused feet of women whose approach to pedicures was basically to dip their entire toe in the varnish and call it a day. But such women, of course, also tended to be the sort whose feet got damned sore walking in heels all night, so arboretum staff could kindly mind their own business, thanks, and respect the privacy of Anna’s tucked-away little garden arch, where she sat embowered with her thoughts and the deep, honeyed aching of her thighs.

And. Of course. With him.

“I’m, ah, not certain that’s very sanitary, you know,” Edmund remarked, nodding at the pearlescent fish flitting about her feet. Luxuriantly, Anna spread her toes.

“Join me?”

“ _Ha_ —no. Um, no, thank you.” With a chuckle and a shake of his head, he took a sip of his cabernet. “My feet aren’t as … appetizing as yours, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t want to put them off their feed.”

How soft Edmund looked tonight. How handsome, with his jacket and slacks a tweedy, silvery gray and his navy shirt so dark—how very like the stars. He sat on a low stone bench, Anna curled at his feet, her cheek resting on his knee and his clever fingers showing the back of her neck exactly how clever they could be. Their absent kneading left Anna feeling too melted to move. From this angle, the lanterns strung along the garden paths dropped little drips of gold all along his hair, and all the architecture of his jawline was hers to admire—not to mention the purple nebula blooming up the side of his neck. Anna bit her lip. Her head lolled backward onto his back, and she gave up all pretense of watching the stage.

_“So where are you taking me, anyway?”_

_“Hm. Where do you suppose?”_

_After Edmund’s shirt was done up, after Anna washed away her ruined makeup and her tears, they sat in a taxi and watched the city lights slip by. Anna forcing herself to smile, trying think about anything other than Abe. Edmund unusually quiet and still rather flushed. He’d been flicking glances her way the whole drive, watching her expression, she suspected, his a mixture of eagerness and dread._

_“Mmm … restaurant.”_

_“Try again.”_

_“Theatre?”_

_“Alas!”_

_“Museum.”_

_“Do you think I’d repeat myself so soon?”_

_Out of downtown, out of Setauket entirely, then, into the forest that lined the coast. The sun below the horizon by then, only a thin line of gold still limning the sea. Anna raised her eyebrows._

_“Oh,” she remarked calmly, watching the silhouettes of oaks scroll by: “I get it. You’re kidnapping me. This was all just a ruse to lure me away from Setauket and hide my body in the woods.”_

_“Damn. And I’d wanted it to be a surprise.”_

_“Well, my first instinct for corpse disposal would’ve been the millpond, to be honest. So you’ve got me there.”_

_“Darling, I believe I’ve yet to have you anywhere,” he sighed, and she knew he didn’t mean it that way, but it was still been enough to make her belly flutter. The cab driver raised eyebrows at her in the rear-view mirror, and Anna turned her face away, blushing, before throwing out one final guess:_

_“Somewhere we can see the stars.”_

_That gave Edmund pause. “…Perhaps.”_

And they could. Distantly, if they looked; just a few pinpricks of light here and there. But not well enough, in Anna’s opinion, to count. Not when there were so many distractions nearer to earth—tall stands of cypresses spiraling toward the sky; beds of tulips planted in spirals particolored and bright as a candy shop; dazzling fountains, firefly lanterns, musicians and performers and artists selling caricatures and _people_ , so many people crowding the paths that Anna had immediately slipped her arm through Edmund’s to keep him from getting swept off somewhere by the flood. Somewhere in the fuzzy backwoods of her brain, she supposed she’d been dimly aware that the outskirts of Setauket boasted an arboretum ( _“And botanical garden,”_ Edmund had been quick to add, as though that made all the difference in the world). But how could she have guessed that it turned into a festival ground on summer nights? How had _Edmund_ guessed? She’d pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at him upon arrival, wondering how he’d ever even found this place and what about an _arboretum_ (and botanical garden), of all places, had struck him as superior to the standard formula of dinner and possibly “dessert.” But she had not, as yet, dared ask.

Instead, they ate. They drank. They wandered. They watched musicians play on makeshift stages, and Anna endured Edmund’s half-serious shushes as he endured the giddy commentary she whispered in his ear. They lost each other in rosebush labyrinths, then found each other again, and Anna watched the strangers pass by—families, children, older couples, chattering friends—and wondered what they thought of her and Edmund.

Could those passersby tell what a tether there was between them? Even when neither she nor Edmund was touching the other, or even looking? Every time their hands _did_ brush or their eyes catch, that tether wound tighter and tighter within Anna, tugging at something low in her stomach as though it were sunk there with a tiny hook. Surely anyone could see that tension, even at a glance—and if even strangers could sense it, surely Edmund did too.

Because this was lovely, yes. This was nothing she could have predicted and everything she could have asked. To perch on oak limbs that curved all the way to the ground and still were thicker than her waist; to stumble upon the overgrown remains of a ruined colonnade, as though they were explorers in some ancient, untamed land rather than two half-drunk idiots stuck on Long Island. To meander narrow paths with a glass of wine in her hand and her hip bumping against his, listening to him chirp excitedly about, oh, how gorgeous this was, or _oh, what was that, let’s go see_—it was lovely as a dream, but it all felt like procrastination, in the end. Because from the moment she (so weary, so hurt, so shaking, still, with anger at Abraham and with the petulant urge to _prove him wrong_ , half to convince him and half to convince herself) had realized that it was not only reckless, reactionary insanity that drove her to slide her hands below Edmund’s waistband and to feel his pulse pounding against her tongue, but a surreal and genuine _desire_ to do so—from the moment she slipped that first button from its eye, it seemed to Anna that every moment since had been driving them toward one inevitable conclusion, and all this innocent hand-holding and light conversation, all these heady sips of wine and these startling glances where they forgot to smile and forgot to speak and simply _stared_ at one another through the lantern-lit night with an unspoken but electric intensity—all of these things were lovely, but ultimately nothing more than foreplay and gratification delayed.

 _This man is not like that_ , she reminded herself sternly, though it was honestly a bit difficult _not_ to let her mind stew in the gutter when his thigh was so warm beneath her cheek. They hadn’t even _kissed_ since leaving her apartment, for god’s sake, except for a simple, distracted press to her knuckles as they’d been wandering by a rock garden a while before. But that was the _point_ , really: she was dealing with the sort of man who kissed _knuckles_. Doubtless, he did _not_ expect…

But Anna couldn’t stop looking at the bruises on his neck. No more than she could stop herself from remembering the way his thighs had shivered with heat as she’d flattened her hands atop his boxers and pretended not to realize that that wasn’t his belt buckle pressing into her hip.

_“Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.”_

_“Aye, there it is.”_

_“Pray thee, give it me. I know a bank—”_

“Where the wild thyme blows…” Edmund whispered above her, following along with the play. When their feet had grown weary of wandering, they’d found themselves this secluded nook not far from the stage. From Anna’s angle, she could just see the actors through the topiaries. Oberon looked terrible and beautiful all at once, the way a storm looks, in his cape of ivy and crown of tumbling, half-broken tines … but Anna found she preferred to watch Edmund, his eyes so bright, as he mouthed along with the familiar words.

_“…where oxlips and the nodding violet grows…”_

Looking down at her, Edmund trailed off. His clever fingers stilled, to her woe, and the next of Oberon’s lines passed unremarked as his gaze held hers. The tether wound another notch.

Tenderly, Edmund moved his hand to her jaw.

“There sleeps Titania, sometime of the night,” he murmured, stroking her cheek. “Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight. You look this close to nodding off, my dear. How can you _possibly_ be comfortable down there.”

“You have a very cushiony knee.”

He frowned at her, and Anna felt her grin blooming.

“Kidding. Do you stab people with these? They’re so bony, I think you could—”

“Yes, yes, your opinion is _noted_. Here…” Edmund set his wine aside and then, heedless of the danger to his pretty suit, slid down next to her on the mossy earth. Graciously, he lowered the shoulder nearest her. “I’ve been _told_ my shoulder makes a very poor pillow. Still, I should think it couldn’t be any worse.”

Edmund Hewlett’s shoulder was less bony than his kneecap, but only just. It was also, Anna decided immediately, her new favorite pillow. She nestled her cheek into it and gazed drowsily at the stage.

“I hate this play,” she murmured fondly, lulled into honesty by his hand on hers and by the warmth of his neck, just as Edmund chirped, “I love this play.”

His aghast glance made a fine complement to her cringe.

“Oh—I meant—”

“No no! Quite all right. It’s, um. I mean, _Midsummer_ is a _decent_ play, but it’s certainly no _Hamlet,_ is it? We needn’t stay.”

“No,” said Anna, seizing his jacket before he could stand. Damned if she was going to give up shoulder privileges so soon. “No, I don’t mind. Why—can I ask why you like it? I’d have pegged you for the histories, sure, or the classical ones … _Julius Caesar,_ _Coriolanus_ … but…”

Uncharacteristically, Edmund bit his lip. It was a vice Anna knew she had a problem with herself but which made him look unsettlingly vulnerable and lost.

“Well, I mean … There’s the merits of the writing itself, of course, but even putting that aside, I…” Her head jostled as he shrugged. “What’s _not_ to like? Humor, adventure, a happy ending for all? Requited _love?_ I’ve never—”

No, not lost, Anna realized as he hesitated. _Embarrassed_. Half cringing, half smiling, Edmund shook his head at the ground. “…Is it so foolish, to want all that?”

Anna watched through a gap in the hedges as Oberon laid love-in-idleness on his lady’s eyes. “Of course it isn’t. As long as your love is built on something true.”

By his silence, by the way he worked his jaw, squinting at the stage, she suspected with resignation that this was the sort of data that he could appreciate intellectually but that did not _truly_ register in his heart. Anna was still groping for the words to explain when his phone chose that moment to ring.

Her pillow jostled as he retrieved it from his pocket. He frowned at the screen for only a moment before rejecting the call, but Anna knew the window had closed.

“Apologies. Ah—” Just like that, he was smiling in a way she recognized too well as one of her own deflective gestures. “…Perhaps another glass of wine?”

There was so still much—as Anna thought to herself once they were wandering again, their fingers entwined and neither of them speaking— _so_ much about Edmund that she did not know. And what a weird thought _that_ was, all things considered. How could someone who spoke so expansively and so passionately about seemingly every little thing that entered his strange little head be a mystery? How easy that made it to forget, sometimes, that he had four whole decades of history buried far across the ocean in soil she’d never seen. That he wore so many things so openly on his sleeves only made moments like this all the more disquieting.

Anna watched him drain his wine and wished she could peel away the layers of his skin as easily as she had the buttons of his shirt. What kind of heart did he keep under there? Had it ever been broken? Had it ever been bruised? Did it still bear the crescent-shaped scars of other women’s nails? How could he possibly have managed to keep it whole all this time? But maybe he had, somehow, and _that_ was the reason he didn’t already understand how awful it was to open your eyes one morning and realize that someone you’d thought an angel was actually nothing more than an ass.

“I could see you in Shakespeare, you know,” Edmund remarked.

He, at least, seemed to have recovered his good mood quickly; what a concept, not being eternally haunted by every misstep. They were meandering along a crowded main thoroughfare, taking in the sights, and he was smiling with tipsy ease. Gravely, he held up a finger. “ _Not_ as Titania; Beatrice, perhaps. Or Jessica, or Viola—and a very fine Lady Macbeth, I daresay, to take a darker turn. You’ve certainly the presence for it, and the intensity of feeling. You’re, ah, familiar with _Macbeth_? The lady, she—”

“I may not have as many degrees as you, Edmund, but you do realize you don’t have an _exclusive_ claim on the classics,” she informed him wryly. “I’m _familiar_ with plenty of Shakespeare, thanks.” A realization like lightning; Anna turned so suddenly she had to stop him with a hand to the chest, heedless of the traffic flowing around them. “You remind me of a character, too. From one of my favorites of his plays.”

“Oh? And please don’t say _Edmund_ , for pity’s sake, you’re more creative than that and I am nothing like him at all.” At the secretive curve of her smile, he realized what he was in for and sighed. “Tell me the play, at least.”

“ _The Tempest_.”

His eyes lit up.

“Prospero? I’m wounded by the comparison to an old man, I admit, but I can approve of his rather Enlightenment approach to thaumaturgy.” Anna shook her head, grin growing broader as his tone grew more baffled. “Ariel? Ferdinand? _Caliban?”_

“ _Not_ Caliban.”

“Oh, have mercy and just _tell_ me, Anna!” he whined, which sealed his fate; Anna slipped her hand from his and danced mischievously away.

“ _Make_ me.”

And, heart already thrilling for the coming chase, she fled.

Away from the crowds she led him, ducking between passersby and around hedges; away from the lights and the music and the well-worn paths. How close the air hung tonight. Thick with a promise of rain, warm as the skin of his neck, damper and more fragrant the farther she led him into the lonesome depths of the wood. Not running but not walking, always just a stride ahead of him, close enough sometimes to touch but never to catch. And maybe it was the wine that made everything feel so lush and visceral tonight, or maybe Edmund had picked the right play after all, and somewhere between the stage and this dreamlike, bough-bowered trail, they’d wandered out of Long Island and into Faerie. Breathless, she paused to wait for him beside a hawthorn grove, and thought:

_This man has a good heart and an open, endlessly curious mind._

Because perhaps she would never known everything about Edmund Hewlett, but she knew _that_ , at least.

One hand on her waist as he caught her, caught up to her, stumbled with her against the white-blossomed boughs. Another step from Edmund backed her against the tree. Pale petals dusted his hair as he dipped his head, apparently choosing the most obvious method of persuasion, but before he could reach her mouth, she pressed her finger to his lips, pressed her lips to the tip of his nose, ducked out of his arms while he was distracted and slipped away. And his scandalized shout was nothing but a delight, because she could just picture his face as he did it, and maybe there were still a thousand and one things she would never know about Edmund Hewlett, but at least she knew:

_This man has eyes that crinkle when he’s happy and crinkle when he’s confused, and he has a smile that changes worlds. Or at least, that changed mine._

She emerged from the trees into the light again, breathless, finding no one else in sight, feet quickening at the approaching sound of his—

_He has soft skin and softer hair and I can’t stop thinking about those sounds he was making, those breathy little ohs, every time I sucked on his throat, and he—_

_He is changing me_ , she realized with sudden and unsettling clarity, staring up at the lanterns that dotted the trees. Swaying on their wires, they looked like fireflies dancing, or, or … like plants adrift in space. _He is changing me, and … I don’t know into what_.

Because like a broken and incredibly infuriating clock, Abraham could occasionally be right about _some_ things, at least. If he had changed, it was no more than she. What the hell would the Anna of only a few months ago—the one who’d charged into Whitehall like an avenging and extremely stupid angel—think of her now, if she could see herself smoothing her hands down the back of Edmund Hewlett’s trousers and exploring the curves of his surprisingly grabbable ass? Much less that she’d done so while thinking about how simple it would have been to slide down to her knees before him and press her forehead into the groove along the inside of his hip.

Anna’s gait stumbled. Swaying on a rickety heel, she made her way down the path to a short footbridge arcing over the neck of a pond. It looked so cloyingly quaint she could hardly stand it. Seeing as though she suddenly felt as though she could hardly stand at all, however, she found herself not too proud to stagger to the center of it and brace her hands against the rail, leaning out over the water with a shuddering breath.

Her head lifted only at the sound of his voice.

“Ah—I see, as usual, you’re proven correct, my dear.”

Edmund silhouetted at the end of the bridge, silvery against all the leaves. Cautious, as though she were a horse liable to flee, as he approached.

“What?” she managed, voice strangled. His chuckle was a bashful sound. At her side, he smiled a wry smile and canted his down head toward the pond, where sunburst-shaped flowers drifted like constellations against water as black as a midnight sky.

“Someplace we can see the stars.”

“Lotus,” she murmured, recognizing the flowers at once. They spun in hypnotizing orbits over the surface, their pale, pointed petals tipped with pink. “I used to dream of growing them, you know. Moving out to the country someday, once Selah and I had the money, and having a pond. And gardens, for all the different herbs, and maybe some fruit trees, hives for bees … We’d probably never have managed it anyway, but I had this stupid idea that someday we’d get out of the city and grow everything we needed for the tea.”

“How do you mean?”

Edmund stepped closer, chest brushed her shoulder as she twisted so that her back was to the rail. He braced his hands on either side of her as she spoke.

“Well … fruit for the Earl Greys, you know, and bees for the honey and flowers for the tisanes, but with the lotus specifically … It’s called scenting. In teamaking, it’s traditional, with some blends, to use aromatics to flavor tea. Lotus, osmanthus, jasmine…” Absently, she played with a thread on his sleeve. “With lotus, they stuff the flowers with green tea and let them sit overnight till the tea’s absorbed the scent. It’s like—like using the right sort of wood for a wine barrel, I suppose, or charring it a certain amount when storing whiskey—so the average person, when they’re drinking it, doesn’t say, _oh, that’s lotus, that’s white oak, that barrel’s been toasted then charred_ —but it still—”

“Changes it. Yes.” Edmund was smiling down at her in such a sappy way, it could only be blamed on too much merlot. Hawthorn still dusted his hair. “This is precisely why I wanted to bring you here, you know.”

“Because I don’t _already_ spend enough time torturing you with tea?”

“Because this is _you!_ Anna—you grow herbs on your windowsill! You know every spice and every plant in every one of your teas, and you know all the minutiae of how they’re made. When I found this place, I kept thinking of that room at the museum, with the glass flowers, you know, and I … You gave me the galaxies there, Anna. I supposed that the least I could do was give you this.”

 _This man_ , thought Anna, trying not to blush, _is too much_. “…I guess I’m that transparent, huh.”

“No. Anna—I don’t understand you at all.”

Edmund looked as surprised by the admission as she felt. He hesitated, squinting at her, working his jaw. “Your tea, your politics, your—your past romances—I don’t understand any of it. But—”

His hands had begun windmilling, as was their custom. Anna stilled them with her own as he finished, “I’m _trying_.”

The rain was coming. She could taste it ever stronger on the air, astringent and floral as green tea. Her hands guided his to her waist, and Edmund lowered his head again, crowding her gently against the rail. This time, Anna did not pull away.

They stood there, mouths moving, not saying a word, until the rain began in earnest and they found themselves huddling beneath a dense stand of elms with Edmund’s jacket around Anna’s shoulders and his hair slicked down along his forehead in subtle curls. “Once the rain lets up, we should go,” she murmured into his shoulder. Edmund rested a sympathetic cheekbone on her hair.

“Tired?”

“…I just want to be alone with you.”

His hand tightened on her hip. And Anna felt him swallow, then nod.

 

\---

 

They rode to his apartment in silence. They sat in the backseat of the taxi with only their hands touching, as though their hands were the only parts of each other that had ever touched, as though he weren’t wearing her kisses all up the side of his neck. They drove back into the brilliant lights of Setauket, and Anna felt cold sobriety slipping in by degrees.

Beside her, Edmund looked like a man on his way to the gallows. The little tether in her stomach wound tight and cold.

This was … not how she’d envisioned this cab ride, exactly. And that was not at all the expression she typically got from men she’d expressed a desire to be alone with. The only explanation she could figure for it—an explanation that made her stomach twist with guilt even to consider—was that _he_ … did not want to be alone with _her_. Which would mean that all her heated glances and teasing, flirtatious feints; all her lingering touches, her exploratory unbuttoning, her—oh god, her _ass-grabbing_ —had been errors, miscalculations, a series of requests typed into Babelfish and processed through so many languages that by the time they got back to English, they were nothing but gibberish. That they had all, in fact, been _unwanted_ , and Edmund simply too much of a sweetheart to protest.

“Edmund…” she ventured, voice tremulous with dread, but his phone rang again.

This time, he blinked at the screen as though he’d forgotten what he was meant to do with it. Anna groped for some way to lighten the mood.

“You’re in high demand tonight. That your other girlfriend?”

He startled.

“Ah—Richard. There’s this _project_ he wanted finished, and I may have … Oh, sod it.” Definitively, he turned off his phone. Then he squinted at her like he might a mystery under a microscope. “Is that how you would classify yourself, then? My … ‘girlfriend’?”

Maybe it was the posh accent, or maybe it was just _Edmund_ that made the word seem ridiculously unsophisticated and young. Men like Edmund, she was fairly certain, did not have girlfriends; they had _beloveds, paramours, gentlewoman callers_. But there would probably be better times to tease him about nomenclature. So for now, she simply nodded, and felt her stomach relax a bit when she saw how much his shoulders eased.

Edmund’s apartment, as anyone could have predicted, was much larger than her own. It was near the top of a much taller, fancier building in a much ritzier part of town, and the furniture was arranged with the unmistakable, classy sterility of someone who actually did very little living in his living room. The lack of clutter gave them plenty of space in which to look anywhere but each other.

As Edmund took the jacket from her shoulders, Anna did the standard polite-gazing-around bit one does the first time one enters someone’s home, feeling like an actor waiting for her line. If this had been Selah or Abe, she would simply have shoved him up against the door and flattened her body against his. If this had been Selah or Abe, she would, in fact, probably already have been shoved. But Edmund was unexplored territory, a hypothesis untested and only half phrased. No “then” yet articulated; only a harrowing, dangling “if.”

Politely, Edmund cleared his throat.

“Ah. May I … something to drink? I have some sherry here, or—”

“No, I’m—not thirsty. Thank you.”

He nodded absently, continually, as though he’d flipped a switch to start and didn’t know how to turn it off. Edmund had insisted on bearing the brunt of the rain: while her dress, thanks to his jacket, remained on the dry side of damp, his shirt clung thin to his shoulders, and his hair fell in waves as sinuous as ink. It slicked through his fingers as he raked it nervously back.

“I’ll just … find us some towels,” he muttered, and fled into an adjoining room before she could protest.

Alone, sighing, Anna freed her hair from the soggy remains of its bun. She’d gathered two dozen pins in her hands before she realized she didn’t know what to do with them. Would it be too presumptuous to put them on the coffee table, next to where he’d put his phone, where she’d likely forget them? Too soon to start infecting his home with her presence? Then again, he’d left his tie at hers. Piling them all on a coaster seemed like a decent compromise, at least. Then, at a loss, she began a slow inspection of the room.

The bookshelves—organized by genre and then by author—made her smile. The stately brass telescope standing near the full-length windowed wall did too, until she took a closer look at its lens and saw how thick it was with dust. Then her heart ached, and she had to turn away. But it was the upright piano that captured her in the end—or rather, one of the several framed photographs standing on the piano’s cabinet.

Anna leaned in close, hardly able to believe her eyes.

Logically, of course, Anna knew that Edmund, like most human beings, had once been young. She just had never imagined that he’d been quite so _athletic_ , so _sportsy_ , so— _tan_. Perhaps that last one had more to do with the photo’s age than with his, and that was why the colors looked so dreamlike and the famously sparse Scottish sun so golden on his flushed and freckled face. Edmund’s hair was tousled and sweat-stiff, just long enough to curl around the ears. Behind him, a green field, a hint of fencing, trees. One gloved hand held the reins of the tall white horse he stood beside, the other resting fondly on the noseband below a ribbon fastened to the horse’s cheek. He couldn’t have been much more than twenty. A boy, practically. Beaming broadly and without a care.

Anna took the picture in her hands and sank down onto the bench, her chest feeling unaccountably full.

The Edmund in the picture had fewer wrinkles, of course. Longer hair, face narrower overall but with fuller cheeks. The outfit was … _different,_ but (as Anna decided with a wry bite of her lip) she could probably get used to it. Suffice to say that none of her previous paramours had ever rocked a neck stock or a natty little hunt jacket, was all—much less white riding breeches that asked so little of her imagination. University-era Edmund managed to make the getup look as natural as college Anna’s sweatshirts and ratty jeans.

But despite all the differences, his eyes, she noted quietly, still crinkled. His smile was still a bit lopsided and very wide. And he carried himself with the same pristine aplomb as he did now, when he returned wearing a dry shirt and bearing a small towel in hand.

“I have a new sexuality,” Anna announced, which halted him at once. Smiling impishly, she turned the picture so he could see it. “Men in riding gear. What do I have to do to get you in pants this tight?”

Thank god, he burst out laughing instead of clamming up with embarrassment or offense. “Oh, _lord_ —I haven’t ridden in—twenty years, nearly? Twenty years spent jockeying nothing more strenuous than a _desk_ , no less, so I doubt it would be a pretty sight. I, ah … stopped not long after that was taken, in fact.”

“May I ask why?”

Anna scooted just enough to make room for him on the bench. He sat down astride it, facing her, and she traded picture for towel so that she could dry her hair and he could sigh down at himself, no longer looking _nervous_ , at least, but still more subdued than she’d hoped.

“…There was an accident, during a hunter trial. _I_ wasn’t badly injured—well, less a few crushed toes, but nothing that should have kept me out of the saddle for long … But Bucephalus … had to be euthanized in the field. After that, I’m afraid I simply … lost heart.”

“…I’m sorry.”

He hummed an acknowledgment, returning the photo to its place. Anna drew his other hand gently into her lap, holding it there between both of hers as though protecting that one part of him could keep the whole of him safe, even retroactively. It earned her a smile, at least.

“For what it’s worth,” she teased, “I still think you’d look very dashing in those tight pants.”

A dry chuckle was her reward. “Honestly, my dear, I…”

Hesitation. Anna tilted her head. “What?”

He pressed thin his lips and shook his head, the corners of his mouth twitching. His ears had taken on a suspiciously florid tinge.

“ _Edmund_ ,” she wheedled, grinning as she leaned in. “ _What?_ “

“Nevermind! …It’s silly.”

“Oh no, _anything_ but silly.”

“It’s _embarrassing_.”

“You’ve seen me cry how many times?”

Edmund sighed.

“Fine! Fine. I was _going_ to say that … To be perfectly honest, my dear…” After a beseeching glance at the ceiling (the ceiling did not deign to send aid), Edmund smiled wryly and shook his head. “The _truth_ is that, no matter what sort of trousers I’m wearing, I, um … I find they often begin to feel _quite_ tight enough, my dear, when I’ve been thinking of you.”

Edmund’s apartment was very quiet. Very still. No rowdy neighbors or street traffic penetrating this high above the ground. It made the air seem fragile and left Anna unable to shake her awareness of every little place their bodies touched: his left hand in hers, his right on her knee, ankles brushing, the half-twisted angle of her body slotting so neatly into the gap between his legs. Tentatively, Anna touched her fingertips to his wrist.

“I don’t mean to push.” Her voice was hushed. “Please don’t let me push. But … How ‘old-fashioned’ _are_ you, exactly,” she asked, and Edmund drew a deep breath.

“Moderately so. _Negotiably_ so. I’m not adhering to any sort of timetable here, Anna. I’m not correlating number of bases to number of dates. I _want_ you—” Anna shivered as Edmund found her waist, drawing her deeper into the vee of his thighs. “ _Immensely_. I want you in _every_ way, your friendship most of all, but—but in other ways, yes, that too. I simply … need to know that you take this as seriously as I do, first.”

Anna swallowed. She couldn’t look him in the eye. “Are you talking about love?”

His hesitation gave a truer answer, she suspected, than the words that followed. “Not necessarily, yet. More that you are … seeking love. And that you, um. That you can sincerely envision yourself finding it with me.” His thumb began rubbing circles on her waist in a distracted rhythm that stirred her blood and matched the chagrin in his voice. “I know these things take time, but I’ve been too hasty in the past, with women who—not many women, mind, but a couple—women who I _thought_ were as committed as I was, and—”

“The same women who complained about your shoulders?” Just like that, she understood what sort of heart he had. Anna lay her palm over it and wondered how it could still beat so hard. “I’m not them, Edmund. No more than you’re any of the men who’ve hurt me.”

Ruefully, he laughed.

“Yes, well, that’s what makes it all so terrifying, isn’t it? I never felt nearly this much for them.”

There was something he had told her, once. About Plato, of course. About forms, about shadows, about the difference between _being_ and _becoming_ and how no living thing could ever simply _be_. She thought of that now as she struggled to find the words for these things she knew must be said but which frightened her too much to approach straight on.

“I—” she hesitated; impulsively blurted, “I never told you which character you remind me of.”

Edmund cocked his head, looking a bit whiplashed by the sudden swerve but willing to indulge it. His smile turned to a scoff when she said, “Miranda.”

“ _Anna_ , of _all_ the—”

“No, listen. I never paid attention to her at first. I thought she was just this boring, naive girl, too obedient, too beautiful, too pure—too much all the things too many men still demand women be. But then I read it again, when I was older, and I realized. Every time Prospero begins to act rashly or immorally, it’s Miranda who calls him on it. Every time Caliban taunts her, or curses her—even though he _attacked_ her—Miranda refuses to stoop to his level. She doesn't let his ugliness corrupt her; she still marvels at marvelous things. And that—Edmund, you—”

He was watching her too intently and too unwaveringly from far too _close_ —so close she could see the separate flecks of orange on olive that made up the light brown of his eyes. They made her grapple for words. “ _Look_ at you, Edmund. Do you have any idea how unlikely you are? How impossible it is that _anyone_ can remain so optimistic and so _good_ when the world can be so awful? I don’t know how you manage it.” Could he hear the jealousy in her voice? Could he hear the pain? “I don’t know how you exist.”

She steeled herself, then, and curled her fingers in his shirt. Because now came the hard part. Now, as he was smiling at her with such awe, came the part she knew would wound.

“I can’t tell you I love you,” she said, as gently as possible. A flicker of hurt across those hazel eyes. “I know that’s what you want to hear, but even if it weren’t far too early to know, it wouldn’t matter if I did. I’ve loved before and still watched it go to hell. But—I _admire_ you, Edmund—for your heart and for your mind—more than I can possibly say. And I _respect_ you— _so_ much—and I—I can _promise_ you, with everything I have, that I … I would not give any of that up lightly.”

Somewhere in the midst of all that, her heart had begun pounding unreasonably fast. Anna didn’t even notice till she was done, waiting anxiously for him to respond. Edmund took a breath, then startled her by dropping his forehead against hers.

“Likewise. Ah. Reciprocally, I mean. Regarding my sentiments vis-à-vis you. Is that enough, then, do you think?”

He did not specify for what. It didn’t matter; her answer would have been the same.

“…It’s a _chance_.”

“Then we shall seize it.”

Anna let herself be gathered into his arms, shivering warm with anticipation from the slide of his hand up her spine. Lips an inch from hers, he hesitated. She cupped his jaw; angled her mouth into his; whispered, in the heartbeat before their lips came together, “Be not afeard—”

How long since she’d done this?

How long since she’d last kissed like this, let her hands run over someone’s shoulders like this, with that inimitable electric giddiness particular to the tentative touches of lovers coming together for the first time?

Years. Eternities. Uncertain but eager, clumsy but complementary, fumbling with unfamiliar clothing over unfamiliar architecture as they searched out the shape of each other with hands and lips and tongues. Slowly, at first. _Courteously_ , in a way that lacked the visceral predator-prey thrill of tearing at buttons or pinning him to the couch, but which stoked her blood nonetheless with each deepening kiss and every ever-bolder caress. Vaguely, she felt her elbow bump the piano keys, heard a jumble of discordant notes, but was honestly a bit busy to care.

They tangled together all the grace attainable to two people necking on a piano bench, which was, it turned out, not much. Anna’s leg hooked over his, her shoe dangling off her heel; her hip folded into his lap and her body twisted toward his, leaning into him, letting him cradle her head, letting him hold her where he wanted her as he traced his thumb over her throat. The way he sucked her lower lip felt like an experiment—one she answered with her own. With the arm trapped between them, Anna lifted her fingers from his neck and let them trail down, down, down. Abruptly, the hand on her hip tightened; his breath caught in her mouth and in his throat. Then he pulled her against his chest hard, thrilling in his sudden boldness, and began working his way down her neck in rhythm with the rocking of his hips against her hand.

His hands on her moving faster, then, gripping harder, kneading and pulling her flesh, leaving her boneless; she drew a ragged breath against his hair (damp, tasting of rain) as Edmund braced his thumb on the underside of her breast and pressed his mouth to the top. The damned neckline of her damned dress stopped his progress far too soon.

“ _God_ , Anna,” he groaned, and managed to make it sound like an admonition. “Anna, your _breasts_.”

“Y-yes?” Anna managed, grinning up at the ceiling with eyes shut. Speech was proving difficult just now. Speech did not appreciate the way her chest was heaving with shallow breaths, or the fact that the tickling of his nose had her battling a giggle fit. “I’m aware of them? They exist?”

“I have been in _agonies_ for your breasts.” Another giggle, freer this time, as he nipped the top of her sternum. She couldn’t decide which was more thrilling: his thumb kneading into her breast, or the weight of him hard in her hand. Anna let her head fall back, lightheaded, awash in giddy heat. “You have—” A catch in her throat at wet heat on the inside of her left breast, then her right; a delicious shiver of cold. “—the _loveliest_ breasts I have ever seen.”

“You _haven’t_ seen them,” she corrected wryly, though her voice came out rather shakier than planned. Edmund jerked his head up and frowned with the charming chagrin of a particularly ruffled owl, as though this had genuinely never occurred to him till now.

“Why, the _nerve_ of them. And after I let you see mine!”

Nothing could hold back her giggles after that. They proved highly contagious, and within instants, she and Edmund had dissolved against each other, shaking with laughter even as Edmund peppered her cheeks with enthusiastic kisses and Anna clutched at his shoulders lest she fall off the bench entirely. The giddy scrunch of his eyes, the clumsy way he fumbled when he tried to pull her into his lap, the dazzling breadth of his smile, so pure, like he couldn’t believe his luck—all of that was so very, heartwarmingly _Edmund_ that it melted her heart. But so was the commanding slide of his hand up her thigh and the intense focus in his furrowed brow as, breath labored, he returned his attention to her chest. _That_ was the Edmund she’d known first yet now so seldom saw: the strict and serious businessperson, the critical, keen-eyed professional who spent his days slashing through jargon and legalese, the proud and tightly wound man who had never backed down from any of her challenges. She wondered if she were the only person in all of Setauket who knew him both for his sweetness and for his thorns.

 _That_ was the Edmund—Whitehall Edmund, sharp-lined and purposeful and deliciously, heatedly grave—who worked a slow trail of kisses from her sternum to her navel over her dress. Kneeling beside the bench, he guided her legs around and slipped off her shoes with the air of a fairy tale prince. A glimpse of her sillier Edmund, then, as he made a quip about even the fish getting to see her feet before he did; she pointed out that the fish had done more than _see_ them, thank you very much, and squirmed with ticklish glee when he answered by kissing her toes and the top of her foot. Then a kiss to her ankle, too—just as softly, but slower, his eyes falling closed. Then her calf … Then the inside of her knee, resting her leg atop his shoulder, smoothing up her skirt … Then a long, indulgent slide up the inside of her thigh. Anna’s breath stopped. She leaned back, bracing herself on the bench, and watched in trembling captivation as he gathered her skirt around her hips.

A single kiss—lingering, chaste—to the front of her underwear, just above her clit. Anna’s breath shuddered out.

“May I?” he whispered, and even through cloth, the heat of his breath stirred a pang. His fingers were hooked in her waistband; his lips brushed the crease of her thigh. Anna nodded, throat too tight for speech. This time, when he kissed that spot again, his lips met hair and skin.

Anna’s eyes fluttered shut. She covered her mouth with one hand as kisses turned to caresses and caresses turned to tongue, and she slid further and further down the bench, her body melting into the wet, warm movement of his mouth.

Oh.

Oh—god.

Yes. Yes: much like the riding outfit, she … could probably get used to this.

Anna’s shoulders fell back against the piano, her head lolling back onto the keys, a cataract of jumbled chords, brief and inelegant, more and more of them as her temple rolled to one side and her shoulder blades shifted in counterpoint to the rocking of her hips. Random notes from the piano, the keyboard digging into her shoulders, her precarious balance on the edge of the bench, all of it faded away till the only sensations she could hold onto were slurred, succulent impressions of aching heat: soft tongue, supple lips, exploratory, gentle, easing into it at first but then deeper, sucking, molding into her, breaking away only briefly to dot fleeting kisses against her stomach and thighs. Her breasts, throbbing; her belly, molten, tense; her breath unsteady and short. His hands: one gripping the top of thigh, the other splayed low over her belly, his thumb a perfect, perpetual pressure right where she needed it most. The hand holding her thigh vanished, and she missed it keenly for a moment, skin suddenly too cool, until she heard metal jangling and realized with a thrill of victory that he was undoing his belt. That hand did not return.

He kissed her the same way he kissed her mouth, deep, unhurried, savoring, and every luxuriant lick and long, lingering pull unravelled the ligaments from her bones and wound the tether in her belly tighter and tighter. But even as her stomach fluttered, even as her nerves twinged and her thighs twitched and her skin grew unbearably hot, every moment only deepened this ache in her, this void, this need, till she could hardly breathe, she was throbbing so bad, and nothing could distract her from the agonizing emptiness low between her legs where even the deepest press of his tongue simply was not _enough_. Anna dug her heels into his shoulder blades, wanting to tell him to stop and _desperate_ for him not to.

A stutter of glassy notes from the piano as she turned her head. Shakily, Anna laughed.

“Mm?”

This was absolutely _not_ the time for Edmund to be humming like that. Anna grinned into her shoulder, breath heaving.

“Your … Your _neighbors_ , Edmund … are going to think you are the worst pianist in the _world_.”

His laughter was almost too much, too, so sensitive was her skin. Before he could lower his head again, Anna slipped her hand between them to delicately cover herself. Her fingertips slid down hot and slick.

“Edmund…”

His face expectant, hair beautifully disheveled, cheeks flushed and eyebrows arched. Anna drew breath. All the things she wanted seemed either too cloying or too crass to voice; a relief, then, when he stood without further prompting and lifted her to her feet. A shock of citrus, acid and exhilarating, when he pulled her mouth to his. She stumbled into him, clutched at his shoulders, at his shirt, her panties trailing from one ankle and definitely _not_ his belt buckle pressing against her through his unzipped fly.

Anna leaned into his mouth, scandalized and electrified by the taste of herself on his tongue. Then she gathered his collars in hand and took a single step backward toward his room.

In the end, it was sweet and silly, serious and passionate, clumsy and eager and careful and lingering all at once. It was startling Edmund by pushing him backward onto the bed, and the playful tussle as he tried to roll her beneath him; it was her leg around his hip, his arm around her back, it was purposely kicking the pillows off the bed just because she knew it would bother him. It was moments of levity and inescapable gravity all jumbled together in a delicious, inexorable swing. Anna braced her hands on the headboard as he knelt behind her and drew down the zipper of her dress. She was bending forward, arching her back so that his groin pressed against her just the right way, when a sudden pang of shyness hit as she felt him fumbling with the clasps of her bra.

It was so easy, after all, to deem breasts lovely when they were being propped up by a good balconette, or to admire the shape of a body when you had fabric hiding all the stretch marks and scars. And it had been a _long_ time, so long, since she’d shown herself to anyone new. How much younger she’d been the first time she’d gone solemnly to bed with Selah; how much thinner, the first time she’d peeled her sweatshirt over her head and stood gawkily exposed before Abe—

Reaching behind herself, she stilled his hand. Edmund paused. Then he sat back on his heels and, with no comment, began unbuttoning his shirt. His cufflinks he set on the nightstand with care, followed by his shoes on the floor. Hesitation, then, before he peeled off his socks. His left foot whole and ordinary … His right, unmistakably mangled, missing several toes. He couldn’t seem to look at her as he laid his socks aside.

Fingertips to his jaw; hazel eyes glancing her way. She brushed a reassuring kiss over his cheek.

In the end, she kissed his shoulders, too, and she kissed the ribs he thought showed too stark beneath his skin, and the hipbones and the cheekbones and all the captivating angles of him—and he kissed the curves of her stomach and the padding on her thighs and every inch of her heavy, aching breasts. And as she lay beneath him, simply luxuriating in the drag of all that skin, she admitted to herself that perhaps Abe had been right, and this—whatever _this_ was—had indeed begun as nothing more than the desperation of a lonely heart.

But so what if it had?

She had built a romance once on childhood camaraderie and adolescent yearning, and she had watched it burn out till even the ashes blew away. So she had put childish notions of love aside and built a new one on reliability, on necessity and similarity of purpose—solid, practical foundations that surely could not let her down. But they could, and they had. So how could it be any worse, really, to plant a seed in bad first impressions and bitter coffee grounds, and to focus, for once, not on how it had started, but how much it had grown?

And if he were changing her, let her do the same for him. Let her palms map the shifting of his shoulders and the shape of that oh-so-grabbable ass, and let his mouth make of her body a brave new world, worthy of exploration and wonder, not diminished by her defects but enriched by them. Not because there was anything wrong with either of them now, but because _this_ —this was the _point_ of living, wasn’t it: transformation, resurrection, that eternal Platonic becoming, to discover and be discovered, to grow, to adapt, to learn the shape of your own heart. It was the patina on her best-loved teapot and knowing how long to steep so that the tea was strong but not bitter, and it was this never-ending, unsteady drive toward fulfillment, eternally chasing some sense of _victory_ , some sense of _yes, this is what I’ve been fighting for, this is what I am_ , whether that victory lay in the battle cry of her comrades on a protest-crowded street—or in the soft, helpless _ohs_ Edmund breathed into her neck—or in the way he dragged so sweetly against her with every grind of their hips, till her thighs quivered around his, till her entire body was quivering, from her fingertips down into her lungs. Till Edmund, too, was shaking, his forehead bowed against her breastbone and his hands splayed over the whole of her back. Anna tightened her grip on the headboard and buried her nose in his hair, tangling her fingers in his nape—tasting petrichor, flowers, rain—burning, sweat-slick, his hands molding her flesh, thinking of his eyes, his smile, of his hand over hers around a still-warm mug—

And when they stopped quivering, she was holding his forehead against hers, and they swayed against each other, liquid and warm, breathing into each other’s mouths.

 

\---

 

Two things Edmund knew when he awoke.

Firstly: there was a storm coming. The rain of that evening had returned, it seemed, with spirits reinvigorated and renewed; he could hear the _tmp tmp tmping_ of it against the window even before he turned his head and saw it running down the glass. Out over the bay, lightning pulsed. Soft, shrouded blooms of it in the clouds, too far away as yet to hear the thunder, but surely on their way.

Secondly: he was no longer in possession of his right arm.

Not that he had _lost_ it, precisely. Rather, it had been commandeered—captured by the enemy for purposes of pillow-making, though how ill-advised a course _that_ was spoke to some truly desperate straits. In short: his bicep was now the property of Anna Strong. And _that_ was a sight he’d never dared hope to behold, wasn’t it: Anna Strong asleep in his bed, her bare shoulders limned in predawn light. She was clutching his arm like a child with a stuffed animal, her hair a tumble of darkness over the pillow and her full, kiss-swollen lips dribbling a line of drool onto his arm as she snored. Tenderly, he brushed back a strand of hair caught in her own spit.

He would not be so histrionic—or worse, _cliche_ —as to claim he’d feared the night had been but a dream. His memories of it were too vivid for that, and, if God had any mercy at all, always would be. But she made for a reassuring sight nonetheless.

With utmost care (and more than a little regret), he extricated his limb. Anna frowned, but rolled onto her other side without waking. He retrieved his trunks from the floor, belatedly consigned the condom wrapper beside them to the bin, and then wandered into the kitchen, where he poured a glass of water and watched the sky.

Edmund felt … Oh; there were no words for how he felt. Light as a feather, luxuriantly warm, that clear, serene, emptied-out feeling he sought in prayer. Yet restless, too. As though he’d forgotten something terribly important but had no notion of what. For want of distraction, he retrieved his phone from the table, idly turned it on…

…To the sight of no less than four voicemails and seven missed calls.

All from the same man.

Serenity faltered. With no small amount of dread, Edmund queued up the first message and hit play.

_“Edmund, where are you. The chairman wants to move our meeting up, and I need—”_

_“Edmund, we need that proposal or we’re liable to lose our funding for the expansion. God forbid I sound impatient, but I thought I had made myself clear how important this—”_

_“Do you think this is funny, Edmund? Do you have any sense of the stakes here? I am depending on you, we are all depending on you, pick up your goddamn phone and—”_

_“Edmund. I’ve just spoken to my daughter-in-law. How thoughtful of you to make her complicit in shirking your responsibilities. Anyway. That’s not why I’ve called.”_

This last message was different. No longer aggressive, no longer annoyed; Richard’s voice was level and calm. The way he sounded when he reclined in his chair to listen, face inscrutable, to the opposition before utterly tearing them apart.

 _“I thought about coming by your apartment, but Mary informs me that you’re likely to be occupied tonight … and Abraham informs me with whom."_ Edmund’s jaw twitched, but Richard’s tone remained neutral. _“As your friend, I’d caution you to be wary of Anna Strong—although, as a father who’s already seen the way she gets her claws into men, I suspect you’re not yet thinking clearly enough to listen. You’ll see reason eventually, as they all do. For now, however, as a businessman and the primary shareholder in this company, I will simply say this.”_

And there it was: that sudden, inevitable harshening of his voice, entirely expected but still sharp enough to cut.

_“I’m meeting with the chairman tomorrow morning. If you value this company and your place in it, you’ll be there with the proposal completed. But if you do not, and we lose this investment, or if you find yourself continuing to value the likes of Mrs. Strong over your responsibilities to your career—do us all a favor, then. And don’t bother coming back.”_

End message.

Edmund stared at his phone, transfixed by the play of lightning over the screen. Numbly, he set it back on the table, face down. Perhaps—if he tried hard enough—he could still salvage some of that beautiful serenity, and this night, this clean, clear, uncomplicated sense of being right where he ought to be, would never have to end. But the tighter he clung to it, the more scattered he felt. Until all he could do was sit by the piano and watch lightning approach over the bay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …So … that, um … happened! Honestly, writing this was the weirdest experience. I haven’t attempted a detailed sex scene in years, and though I know this is pretty tame by fic standards, I still feel like I need to be cleansed of my sins.
> 
> And I debated about including the sex, to be honest. "Too soon?" I worried, 140k words in. But fiction of all sorts has a tendency to fizzle out once the UST becomes RST, so I want to take a moment here to assure y’all that LOA has an ending planned, but this is absolutely not it. If I were to plot this fic on a three-act structure, I’d say this chapter just brings us to the end of Act II: the closure of the second major arc. Now it’s time for a new arc to begin, with new conflicts and new goals. There are storms ahead, of course. But sunny days as well.
> 
> So stay tuned for Selah’s memorial and more about the Culper Ring; the triumphant return of Caleb and Ben, and the addition of some new characters, one of whom I’m very excited to introduce next chapter; more fluff, more smut, more angst, more trouble, and, as always, more tea. I’m _so_ indescribably appreciative of everyone who’s stuck with this story over the past year ( _year!!!_ omg), and I promise the fun’s not over yet. ;)
> 
> Show quotes:  
> "I know these things take time" and "Then we shall seize it" (3.03), and a paraphrase about Edmund not stooping to Simcoe’s level (3.02). And many a Shakespeare line, of course. Note that Edmund’s suggestion that Anna play Jessica is rather apt, since Heather Lind did just that (alongside [an eerily familiar Lorenzo](http://d3rm69wky8vagu.cloudfront.net/photos/large/5.157345.jpg)) several years ago. :)


	19. Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your patience and encouragement through the long wait, every one of you—and very special thanks to the-tasseographist on tumblr for [this beautiful rendition of Anna and Edmund!!!](http://calamity-bean.tumblr.com/post/150936973592/the-tasseographist-i-recently-finished-reading) They look perfect, dear, thank you so much.
> 
> In this chapter, I finally got to use a few paragraphs of some of the first material I ever wrote for this story—all the way back in _July 2015!_ *sobs*

It must have been the rain that dug him up. Rain had a talent for that: it churned the soil, stirred sweet-smelling petrichor from the leaves; it lured earthworms wriggling to the surface and tempted toadstools into being as though by magic, no sign of them apparent when night fell yet fully formed and thronging by the time sunlight hit the dew. It found all the treasures and skeletons men buried and brought them back to light.

So the rain must have been why, when Anna sank into sleep—sweaty and sated and deliciously warm, with Edmund’s heart beating in her one ear and the sound of rain battering the rooftop in the other—she found a dead man waiting in the dark.

Anna awoke from her dreams full of dread.

Certain, somehow, even as the surreality of sleep ebbed away, that if she rolled over, she would see Selah asleep at her side.

God. Morning. Reality never seemed fully intact in the morning. Midday was inescapable, afternoon a comfortable sigh, evening crisp with energy—even midnight was somehow the most real time of all, when the lights were brightest and her mind clearest and the sea blended with the sky into a landscape with no limits, only vast, thrilling opportunity, as rich and dark as the silt left by a strong-brewed cup of tea. _Mornings_ , though. Mornings were dirty yellow light unevenly sketching out a city only half formed.

The only way mornings should be allowed was if everyone had a lover to wake up with and all the time in the world to linger in bed together until the world was fully drawn. Was there any better way to wake up than to sound of another person’s heart? How sweet to wake up still sore and sweat-slick from the previous night, only to loll right back into each other’s arms. For all that Abe and Selah had been like red and blue, both had been tender in the morning. Selah had been a man of actions more than words, and Abe of too many words that meant nothing, but their caresses spoke eloquently enough.

How many mornings had she let Selah slide atop her, her fingers splayed over his broad back … How many times had she rolled over and seen a strong shoulder limned in sunlight, the fine hair of Selah’s chest tipped with gold, the complex angle of Selah’s jaw. Turned away from her, hiding his face.

Closing her eyes, Anna drew a deep breath. And, _oh_ ; how soft the pillowcase was on her cheek. Finer by far than her own sheets, and they smelled of Edmund, that alluring, elusive, books and bergamot and warm-oiled tack-leather scent. Anna felt her lips curl upward as she remembered how hot his skin had been as she fell asleep last night, her head pillowed on his chest. Her hair sticking to his skin … His sweat sharp on her lips. What a comfort just to lie like that, utterly unselfconscious of their stickiness and sweat, and to share such closeness and trust with someone for the first time in far too long.

Dread began to ebb in favor of warmth, and a sweet awareness of the press of her thighs. She would roll over, and she would not see Selah, of course. She would see a jaw square and jutting, and the sort of big, long-lashed eyes that women envied. The sort of jaw she’d have no choice but to nuzzle into, and the sort of eyes she’d _have_ to kiss while he still slept—two featherlight touches beneath his eyes and more all along his cheekbones until either she cut her mouth on their edges or he awoke and rolled her body beneath his. And god, just think: How many times, today and in the days to come, would she get to roll over and see _slender_ shoulders, elegant collarbones, a smooth chest and thin wrists with piano-player hands?

Ankles crossed, thighs twining tight, Anna rolled over with a smile…

And found herself alone.

Rumpled sheets, a dented pillow … a view of Setauket from a vantage far higher than her own building could offer … and nothing more. Poised uselessly in her most seductive pose, Anna blinked.

… _I’ve done it_ , she thought surreally. _I have actually managed … to drive a man into sneaking out of his own home_.

Abandoning her seduction of the room, Anna sat up.

“Edmund?”

No coffeemaker burbling happily in the kitchen; no shower running in the bathroom, the door to which hung open and dark. Not even the sizzle of a frying pan or the padding of feet reached her ears. Edmund’s apartment was as still and staid as the predictably classical landscape paintings framed on his walls. All her best-laid plans for the morning—and she’d intended them to be _very_ well laid indeed—began to sag.

“Are you there?”

Nothing, even when she raised her voice.

There she was, naked and already half wet, in an apartment she’d never set foot in prior to the night before, and he … had left her there. Alone.

…She might’ve expected that, if it were Abe.

 _Stop it_ , she chided herself, screwing her eyes shut. This was _Edmund_. He was practically a sonnet come to life. If he’d snuck out before she woke, it was probably only because he was going to walk back in at any moment, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with a box of fucking fresh-baked croissants—

It did not mean that he’d _left_.

He’d promised he would give her a reason first, when he finally left.

Salt sharp on her lips. Anna sniffed, startled at her own reaction, and ground the heel of her head into her eye. And bitterly, bizarrely—she laughed.

 _I will never be rid of you, will I_ , she thought wryly, shaking her head.

No matter how many years passed, no matter how thoroughly she replaced him or thought she’d weeded the last traces of him from her life, she would always carry something of Selah inside her. Deep down in there with all the rest of them: Ben and Caleb and their smiles; Abigail and her sure, strong hands; all three of them so far away from her now, consumed in their own lives; and Abraham, too, and her mother who withered too young, and her father who’d broken before he bent, and poor martyred Samuel Tallmadge and Thomas Woodhull at his closed-casket funeral, the both of them forever young. Each of them a separate crack in her heart. Every single one had turned away from her at some point; some ending abruptly, some changing course; but always, at least, in ways that she could trace, their paths a progress she could understand. Except for Selah. Selah, that eternal ellipses: always in the act of leaving her for some purpose she would never know, and Anna always in the act of being left.

The notion weighed on her, and maybe she would have dug him out of her heart if she could. But there were other notes to the sadness as well. Resignation; freedom; even comfort. In and of itself, maybe, each wound was an act of violence and each crack in her heart a scar, but together, they made a pattern like a spiderweb, or a flower, or a star—beautiful even in its danger; intricate and ever-changing; tracing the course of her yesterdays, mapping the shape of her present, and, maybe, hinting toward something she couldn’t yet read.

And now Edmund would be there too, a new line on the map, striking out away from all the others into waters exciting and unknown.

So maybe it wasn’t so bad, to carry Selah in her heart, as long as she got to carry the rest of it, too.

_So stop feeling sorry for yourself, Anna, and stop sitting on your ass. Follow that line._

When she did, she discovered that while sneaking out itself did not seem in character, he’d managed to go about it in a thoroughly _Edmund_ way. Such as: he’d retrieved her clothes from the floor before he left. Even the bits she’d left by the poor, traumatized piano. She found them folded neatly on the nightstand, bra atop panties atop dress. Not exactly something any other lover had ever bothered to do for her, but somehow, the complete opposite of a surprise. Had he done it more as a courtesy to her, she wondered, smiling as she picked up her underwear, or just because he didn’t like leaving things lying around the floor?

Oh, bless him. He’d even turned her undies rightside out again. Safe to say, Abe wouldn’t have bothered to do _that_.

She left the bra and dress, availing herself instead of one of the ten thousand collared button-up shirts in Edmund’s closet. Probably he could spare one for an hour or two—and besides, it was _his_ fault her tits were too sore to go back in a bra. Her nipples, still sensitive from the attentions of teeth and tongue, chafed tantalizingly against the fabric as she ventured into the next room.

At first glance, it, too, appeared empty, as did the adjoining kitchen and what she could see of the room behind another door. Her shoulders slumped as the prospect of sleepy morning cuddles continued to dim … until she saw the foot peeking over the arm of the couch.

When she peered over the back of the sofa, she had to press a hand to her mouth to contain her grin.

Edmund … was a man of great dignity. Well. He _tried_ to be. That was among the first qualities she’d despised in him, after all, before he’d somehow tricked her into finding it so endearing. Which was why the sight of him sprawled facedown on the sofa like a lazy cat, his limbs sticking out at awkward angles and his face buried in the crook of one arm, was one she planned to cherish for years to come.

His other arm trailed down to the floor, where a pen and a pile of papers lay scattered beneath his hand. His pajamas were classy insomuch as they were windowpane check and hilarious insomuch as they were _pajamas_ , actual pajamas, the kind with matching pants and button-up shirt. In and of themselves: adorable. She couldn’t have asked for more. But why he’d chosen to get dressed and do some early-morning paperwork, however, rather than—oh; she didn’t know—wake up naked together in bed … Well. Who really knew why Edmund Hewlett was the way he was.

Anna leaned down and gave his shoulder a loving poke.

“Edmund.”

Faintly, he stirred. Or, to be more accurate, grumbled and buried his face deeper in the cushions. She leaned further, resting her stomach on the back of the couch, and jabbed him next in the ribs.

“Come on, darling.” Grinning, she leaned further and further over the couch, poking and prodding and tickling him as, groaning, he tried to squirm away. “The larks are heralding, the light through yonder window breaking, et cetera, et—”

“ _Ah_ —for the love of God, woman, can you _not_ —!”

Twisting a hand behind himself, he snatched her wrist mid-stab so that, when he rolled over, Anna was pulled forward over the back of couch. Laughing, she tumbled onto his stomach and squashed the breath from him. “Edmund, the larks!”

“You— _oof_ —you _harpy_ ,” he muttered, one arm thrown histrionically across his eyes, as she repositioned herself atop him. “You … merciless, pointy-fingered Alecto. Not since Caesar on the steps of the Senate has there been such a spearing. What have I ever done to … to merit such a…”

His murmur trailed off into gravel; his arm hung loose and heavy around her waist as she lay atop him. For a moment, she was sure he’d fallen back to sleep. But then his chest rose beneath her with a deep breath.

“What time is it.”

Anna’s gaze fell on a convenient grandfather clock.

“About half past vee-eye-eye.”

Not a good answer, judging by the way he sighed. His arm slumped down off his face, revealing his reading glasses dangling off one ear and red marks all around his nose and cheekbones where they had spent the night mashed into his face.

“ _Rude_ ,” he repeated wearily, just in case she’d missed the point. Fluffy hair and the crinkly lines around his closed eyes made him look kitten soft as Anna began the delicate process of extracting his glasses. “Unspeakably rude. Honestly, madam—you come into my home, and you…” His eyes opened as she kissed the tip of his nose, and he squinted down at her with a frown. “…you steal my clothes. Why … have you stolen my clothes.”

“Why are _you_ wearing clothes at all? What are you doing out here?” As Anna spoke, Edmund moved one hand to her hair, smoothing it back, gently, from her face. Each brush of his hand shivered down Anna’s spine. “…I thought I’d scared you away.”

The hand at her waist dropped toward the papers on the floor once more. “Ah. I … Richard called. Last night. There’s a … ugh, a _meeting_ this morning, and I had to stay up finishing some…” His voice trailed off; his hand stilled at her nape. A smile crinkled his eyes. “You wear that shirt far better than I do, you know. It pains me how much better, to tell you true.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I certainly couldn’t pull _this_ off like you do.” Her fingers played with his collar. “Though … I think I prefer you in neither.”

“Hmm. Which of us would wear _that_ better, do you think?”

Biting her lip, Anna unsnapped the top button of his jammers. Then she shrieked as he flipped her onto her side. It was a bit fumbling, the couch a bit cramped, but Anna held on to his shirtfront as they rolled, and both of them were grinning by the time Edmund managed to pull her beneath himself.

 _This_ , at last, was how the day should always have started: tangled up together, warm and musky and soft, too sleepy, still, to do much more than hold one another, but too awake to resist the temptation of touch. Their faces angled together, forehead to forehead more than lip to lip. Not kissing, exactly; a hair’s breadth apart. As though they had all the time in the world for kissing and needed do no more than let their lips lie against one another for now.

Atop her, Edmund seemed in danger of nodding off again. The steady rhythm of his hand stroking her hair was the only way she knew he had not. Each slow drag on her scalp came with lips against her collarbone—trailing over her skin, nuzzling into her and breathing as deeply of her scent as she was of his. Each rasp of his jaw, rough with stubble, made her skin shiver and her hands on his shoulder blades tighten their grip.

And, well … It _was_ morning. With his hips cradled between hers, ignoring that much would have been pretty hard, so to speak. Even utterly still and even with two layers of fabric between them, his erection was a warm, satisfying weight, and she relished the press of it against her. When his hand smoothed alongside her breast, she answered by dragging her groin against his, making him push into her and moan.

But when she slid one hand between them, fingers following the thin trail of hair down beneath his waistband, Edmund pressed his forehead against her temple and shook his head.

“I can’t. The meeting … Richard will have my head if I’m late.”

“I’ll give you my head if you stay,” she teased, and shivered when Edmund’s chuckle made his cock move against her. Despite his demuring, he didn’t seem in much hurry to stop shifting his hips in a rhythm as subtle yet inexorable as the tide. Anna certainly wasn’t inclined to be the voice of reason for once. The friction as he dragged along the cleft in her underwear, the sensation of him pressing into the place where she felt emptiest, but never deep enough, made her knees sink further and further apart.

She could spend eternity like this. Pause the day right now, with daybreak seeping thinly through the windows, and let them linger forever between sleep and sex and speech. As long as they lay there, last night had never truly ended; the world extended no further than the threshold of this apartment, and nothing beyond it could threaten them. She wanted to dedicate the whole day to studying the beating of his heart; she wanted to teach her lungs to breathe in counterpoint to his. She wanted their kisses to be long and lazy, for her body to learn every detail of his shape.

Her thighs still ached from last night, as though she’d been for a hard run. Her abs ached, too, distantly, from rolling her hips so hard against him as she sat astride his lap; his fingers digging into her waist, his teeth grazing her breast as he panted, sitting up against the headboard, following the rhythm she set in those last few frantic moments when they held on to each other so tight. But mornings were for gentle hands, worlds and senses half formed. Here, now, all she wanted to do was drown underneath him and let him unravel her at his own pace. It would be a slow, sweet sort of passion, she was sure, as reverent and attentive as Edmund himself; as though she were art and he the painter, shaping her with sure and steady strokes, or a rare vintage he wanted to savor on his tongue. Languid and lush, and she would cling to him, quivering, until he cut all her tendons loose. They would fall asleep again with their limbs entangled and him still inside her, heedless of the day.

“Stay,” she repeated in a whisper, her tone no longer light. Edmund sighed.

Then he kissed her hair, holding his lips there for a long moment that made Anna’s throat catch with disappointment, for she already knew what it meant. Then he climbed off the couch, the air suddenly cold.

 

\---

 

“You shouldn’t let Richard use you like this, you know,” she added later, after they’d both gotten dressed.

Anna was perched on the arm of the sofa in her rumpled dress, waiting on the call from her cab; Edmund was shaved and showered and fumbling with the knot in his tie. Two mugs of coffee did not seem to have made much of a dent in his exhaustion. Anna’s own coffee sat to the side, politely accepted but untouched.

“He does this,” she continued. The long night and the early hour were catching up to both of the, she had to admit—Edmund worse than her, sure, but even she couldn’t seem to stop herself from sounding more impatient than she would have liked. She felt a little as though her skin were peeling away, shedding the lushness of the night. “He’s always _done_ this, guilting and bullying everyone into obeying him, holding them to ridiculous expectations, purposely inconveniencing them just to show that he can. Now that he’s started, now that he’s shown you what he’s really like, it’s only going to get—”

“Richard is not a dime-novel villain, Anna, and I am not some milquetoast fresh out of school. I have been working in this industry nearly _twenty years_ , for heaven’s sake—I know how to deal with egos.” In frustration, he tore out the knot again. “Just as I know my duty to this company. I don’t bloody well have much _choice_.”

“Edmund.”

A look was all it took. With a sigh, he came to stand between her knees.

“I’m only saying.” Her voice was ragged but her hands gentle as she took charge of his tie. Her fingers knew this dance by rote. “If it gets where you can’t bear it—you don’t have to. Like you said: you’ve been doing this for twenty years. What do you need Richard for? What do you need Whitehall?” He opened his mouth, weary, dismissive, and she touched her fingertips to his lips. “Just say you’ll think on it. If it ever gets to that point.”

A thin smile. He kissed her fingertips, and then, as she still held fast to his tie, leaned in and kissed her. She parted her lips to it, though he tasted too bitterly of coffee. She couldn’t tell whether it meant yes or no.

“I can already tell you’re to be a terrible influence on me,” he murmured against her lips. His voice had that grave, overly dire tone that always made her smile these days, once she’d learned it was his way of smiling as well. “First Whitehall, next you’ll turn me against the very government itself. I’ll disavow corporate America and become as much a rebel as you. Mother will be _shocked_.”

“Oh, I’m not so bad these days. You should have seen me back in my prime protest years, with Ben and Abigail and Caleb. I was even more radical than Abe.”

Even as she said the name, she knew it was a mistake: his expression twitched. _Don’t be jealous_ , she thought wearily. _Selah_ had been jealous; so had Abe, for that matter, not that she’d had any exes to avoid speaking the names of, back when he and she—

“I suppose you must have been birds of a feather, you and Abraham,” he murmured. His gaze was lowered, as though her hands knotting his tie was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. “Once.”

“…Once.”

“If I may ask, what…” The way his jaw worked worried her, but he didn’t sound mad; nor even sad. Only hesitant, as though each word was its own trap. “…was the attraction. With him. With—all of it, really, all that—protest nonsense you used to do.”

 _Nonsense_ rankled, but Anna bit her lip and let it slide; her own words could be equally treacherous, and none of them seemed to be cooperating now. She lowered her hands to his lapel and smoothed it as she thought.

“We grew up together. Went to school together, for undergrad. And we both believed…” A deep breath, and then she simply let herself trace back the lines of her heart and let the words fall as they would. “All any of us ever wanted to do was make the world a better place. Me, Abe, Ben, their brothers, Caleb—well, not Caleb, entirely. Caleb wanted to be a pirate. But he cared, too, and that … was the attraction between all of us, I suppose. We all cared. 

“My parents raised me with a healthy respect for civil disobedience. They never tried to control what I believed, never tried to force me onto one path. But as you can imagine … with Richard being the way he is … Abe’s childhood was not quite the same. College was his first true chance to rebel. And he did. We both did. I may not have had an iron-fisted patriarch to pin my rage on, but I was still … so _angry_ , Edmund, about so many things. The economy and misogyny and homelessness, fundamentalism, the One Percent, marriage equality, student debt, the war. Things I’m still angry about, to be honest, and would be angrier, if I weren’t so busy just … trying to exist. Do you know how validating it was to get to school and discover that there were _thousands_ of students already there who were angry about all the same things we were? That there were _clubs_ devoted specifically to being angry about them? We fed on each other’s fervor, we … burned together.” Chuckling bitterly, she rested her forehead in the crook of his neck. “I suppose it sounds silly, put like that.”

“I don’t believe so,” he murmured. With her temple resting against his throat, every word was a low vibration against her skin. “You were comrades-in-arms. You were soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder on the same lines, fighting to see the same enemies defeated, the same dreams borne into reality. You each believed in something much bigger than yourself. I … may not entirely agree with the methods some of your more, ah, radical sympathizers use, but do I think it silly that you cared for the man who fought beside you? No. No, I don’t believe that’s silly at all.”

Anna’s lips curved. Content to take comfort in the warmth of his skin, she thought that was the end of it, until he cleared his throat. “And … Selah was part of all that as well?”

Her eyes opened. “…It was all we had in common, at first.”

“The same ideals held in common with Abe?”

Anna pulled away and regarded him long and hard, her brow tense. At first, Edmund wore a similar expression, his lips pursed and his gaze one of distant thought, but at her stare, his eyes flicked back to her and his mouth twitched toward a smile.

“Only curious. It’s all rather a mystery to me, that whole … ethos. Never had to think about it before I met you, I suppose, but now, what with, ah … Well. One does wonder whether there was any truth to the things that Simcoe fellow said. About, ah … what may or may not have happened to your husband.”

“ _Edmund_ —I _told_ you I wanted done with all—”

“Yes yes, of course, only … You truly don’t wonder, if he might really have been involved in something still, right under your very nose? And if Selah were still involved … As you said, that was the attraction between all of you, so perhaps Abraham might—”

Anna jerked on his tie. Not hard, but just sharp enough to make him stop.

“Selah’s dead. And whatever killed him is down there with him now, at the bottom of the ocean floor.” Uneasily, she pushed Abe’s words from the previous evening from her mind. _Things I should’ve told you long ago_. Once she knew, she could never not know; once she knew, she would find herself back on that same path Abe walked, the one he had chosen to turn away from her years ago, and if he hadn’t wanted her beside him then, why should she go back now?

But it was not for herself that she felt that coil of cold fear. Because whatever Abe was doing, and whatever Selah had done … They knew anger. They knew battle. They knew what it was to want something so badly to be ruthless in pursuit of it. When they wanted something, they did not let anything hold them back.

And if whatever they were doing was dangerous enough to kill _Selah_ … How could Edmund stand a chance.

Biting her lip, she took Edmund’s sharp, sweet face in her hands. “Neither Abe nor Selah matters now. _Promise_ you’ll let it be.”

Edmund huffed a sigh. It was a bit too equine and petulant to be attractive, but compensated for by the way he covered her hand with his own afterward and kissed her palm. “Oh, very well, madam. As you command. But I will have you know that it’s _cruel_ to place limits on an eager mind.”

“You’ve never heard the one about curiosity and cats, have you.”

Another huff, but a fond one. As she made a final tweak to his tie, his hand drifted to her hip, thumb rubbing the fabric into her skin in a way that made her shiver pleasantly. He didn’t seem immune, either, to judge by the way his gaze trailed along the low neckline of her dress. Anna walked her fingers up his neck.

“There’s still time to miss that meeting, you know…”

“Alas. You may indeed make a rebel of me someday, my dear, but for the moment, at least, I’m afraid I remain dreadfully conventional. Besides, I have … other matters to discuss with Richard. Ah. Perhaps, however, if you’re open to it, I might see you tonight…?”

“Only if you want to help wash out the coffeemakers—I’ve got the closing shift. I keep telling De Young to hire more help, but—”

She bit her lip as his expression turned a shade smug.

“Okay, yes. I get it. We all have responsibilities to our jobs.”

“Well, you know, if you can’t _bear_ working there—”

“Not the same. It’s _my_ shop, Edmund. No matter whose name is on the lease.” Yet the words didn’t quite taste right even as she spoke them. As though she’d brewed oolong but somehow wound up with chai. Anna covered her hesitation with a kiss.

“…I can’t just leave.”

 

\---

 

Yet once the taxi had brought her home, and she had showered the scent of flowers from her skin, Anna sat at her kitchen table and stared unseeingly into her cup of tea.

She’d been careless in her straining. Silt still swirled in the bottom of the cup, dark and rich as soil. She wondered whether there was any truth to that old carnival trick—reading futures from cups of tea.

Not that she needed to. She knew what her future held:

Another day at the shop. Another day of enduring De Young’s condescension; another day of being bitched at by customers, of scalding herself on steamed milk, of her feet aching, back cramping. Another day of being surrounded by walls that used to be hers and trying to ignore the ghosts in the corner of her eye.

How had she ended up like this? The same way she’d never managed to flee Setauket, she supposed, and the same way she’d wound up with Selah’s ring on her hand: inertia, indecision, fantasy yielding to common sense. Not because she’d ever lacked for dreams, but perhaps because—at some point, after the accumulation of so many failures—they’d started to seem too big to grasp.

And yet, there had been a bit of a dream in tea, hadn’t there? When the shop still belonged to her? All she had ever wanted to do was make the world a better place. Perhaps that had never come true the way she’d expected—she’d never become a lawyer like Edmund or Abraham, never defended her country like the Tallmadge brothers, never protected and served like poor Thomas—but at least she’d still found a way to shape something with her own two hands. In her little corner of the world, at least, she was an artist, an _alchemist_ , transforming leaf and herb and oil into something greater than any of those parts, looking into the souls of her customers and finding the tea that spoke in the language of their hearts.

At least … When the shop still belonged to her.

 _I could leave_ , she thought, and forced herself to hold the notion in her mouth. Open a new shop, or—something else entirely. She could follow that line into the uncharted part of her heart and finally feel as though she were walking toward something instead of just running away. The idea was bitter on her tongue, yes—but not as bitter as she’d expected. And there were other notes in there, too. Ones she wouldn’t object to learning more of, now that she’d had a taste.

Anna drank the last lukewarm tea from her cup, savoring that clean, simple warmth on her tongue. Then she sat back and studied the pattern in the leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to the brilliant MercuryGray for pointing out that LOA should feature tea-leaf-reading, which inspired me to do a last-minute rewrite of the end of this and which really made for a more powerful scene. Thanks, Merc. ❤
> 
> Now, uh. If you read [this post](http://calamity-bean.tumblr.com/post/151059193967/btw-loa-is-still-like-a-thing) on my tumblr last week, you may be wondering why _none of the things I said were gonna happen actually happened!_ Honestly, the next time I make a post like that, _please_ : someone slap me. Someone reach through the Internet and _stop me_ , because apparently, even when I think a chapter is all but done, _this happens_ : I come back to it after a few days, and I realize with disquiet that, oh god. I need to split it up.
> 
> A problem all along with chapter 19 as I originally conceived it (Kombucha) was that I was trying to cram in _so much_ , which I realized last night was just ... unnecessary and foolish. It was causing structural problems and was also just a heck of a lot of information to digest. Rereading some older material also made me realize that the original version of this scene between Anna and Edmund had really lost focus of what the story's about and didn't really hit the right notes. That whole section stood out like a sore thumb against the whole, original chapter 19 (Kombucha) in terms of theme and mood ... So I chopped it out, added about 2,000 words, and voila! It became what you see before you, the new 19 (Leaves). Alas, it does not include many of the things I promised. Those things will now be in chapter 20. For realsies. I swear. It really does work better this way, and the material as you see it here is much stronger than it was before. But I still feel bad about teasing particular things—things I've been really excited about sharing, by the way—and then ... not delivering.
> 
> So yeah. Stop me before I ever make promises again.
> 
> ETA: Forgot to credit Billy Shakes!!! Perhaps still a bit drunk on the theatre from last night, Anna quotes from _Romeo and Juliet_ here re: light-breaking and larks.


	20. Kombucha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary Woodhull is going through a Time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, everyone! I hope you're having a fun and spooky holiday. As ever, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy this chapter -- the longest yet at 11,500 words. O_O And if you missed it, I recently drew some LOA Anna & friends [you can check out here.](http://calamity-bean.tumblr.com/post/151749473277/anna-strong-w-abigail-caleb-and-ben-%C3%A0-la)
> 
> Kombucha is a bubbly, fermented tea that you might have seen a friend try to make, if your friends, like some of my friends, are the sort who occasionally show up to gatherings carrying a big jar of rotting liquid. It's fermented using a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast that kind of floats in the jar like a big slimy disk of yuck, and the names used for it in some languages (such as 茶菌 in Chinese) translate to "tea mushroom." In unrelated news, did you know there's an entire genus of mushrooms called [Phallus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus_\(fungus\))?

There had been a time when her fiance’s kisses tasted of smoke, and she had not thought to question it. Why would she? It was a vice of his, she knew. Had found the matches in his jackets and the crumpled packs in the glovebox of his car, and had accepted that she’d spend the coming months fighting a losing battle to scrub that stench out of their lives and replace it with Gain and Febreze. Not until much later did she discover the truth. The first time he felt secure enough or vain enough or in a boastful enough mood to drag her with him to that tea shop crammed into an overlooked niche between two much larger shops. He’d ordered lemon verbena for her and something called lapsang for himself, and as his old flame—a flame that had flickered, maybe, but never died—brewed her leaves, the stench of smoke and pine tar had filled the air, and Mary, nauseated, had thought, _Oh_.

Abe quit smoking within a year of their marriage. Mary had insisted on it. For the baby.

Yet now, just a few years later, here she was. Alone on a street corner in Manhattan, watching her hair drift unbound and unbrushed around her face in the window of the store across the way, and clutching the matchbox in her pocket so tight that its edges creased her palm.

The box was small, ordinary, rubbed soft at the corners. As though it had seen long use, though it still brimmed with matches when she opened it, their tips a jumble of red and black to complement the checkerboard pattern printed on the cardboard. Her grip tightened, and she imagined squeezing so tight that the ink leached into her skin, tattooing her with an admission of guilt no amount of laundry detergent could ever wash away. How she savored that thought. How delicious, the reckless thrill of finally, _finally_ wearing all her sins where everyone could see, all her hunger and heartbreak and violent, desperate pain— _You drove me to this_ , she would say when he confronted her about her snooping, and she’d lay her palm tenderly against his narrow cheek. _You should have trusted me when I asked. Didn’t you realize, my love, that I would burn your entire life down to the roots if that’s what it took to keep us safe?_

And when she lowered her hand, his skin, too, would bear that stain, all his lies for once exposed.

This place was not what she had expected: no stinking dive or red-lanterned tenement, but an elegant white storefront on a fashionable street. The merry glow of the windows made her look afire from within; made her look strange and supernatural and mad. Well—so what if she were mad. That was what the world did to women—was what _men_ did to women—drove them toward day by day and inch by inch with every demand, every lie, every contradiction, trained them from birth to smile when they felt like screaming and to wear lipstick and foundation like a mask, and God forbid you demand the same of a man, God forbid you ask him to strap himself into stilettos because it made his calves look nice, God forbid you stay out all night while your _husband_ tossed and turned in the armchair, waiting for you, wondering where you were, wondering why you lied to him when you finally deigned to come home, only to be ridiculed and mollified and told not to worry his pretty head about it, and also, how dare he question you, how dare he accuse you like that, doesn’t he trust you, wow, so emotional, men were, so fucking crazy, these _men_.

Well. Mary wore no smile now. And though her back ached from too many nights waiting up in the chair, the only thing she still knew in her heart to be true was that she was _not_ mad.

So let Abe dim his gaslights as it pleased him. Let them all regard her as scenery, as an accessory, a silly little girl, the way they always had. Better than all of them, she knew how the most inoffensive appearances could disguise the vilest truths.

Sliding her wedding ring from her finger, Mary Woodhull slipped it inside her pocket and strode, stilettos clicking, toward the bright-windowed doors.

 

\--- Three Weeks Ago ---

 

“Da,” declared Thomas, holding his discovery proudly aloft. Mary snapped her shears two-handed through the stem of a withered rose before turning to examine her son’s find.

“Oh, will you look at that, sweetheart. That _does_ look a bit like Daddy, doesn’t it? Look, it’s even got a stupid little hat.”

The previous night’s rain had gifted Mary’s garden with a glistening new crop of the ugliest mushrooms she’d ever seen. This one was short and stocky with a smooth, sloping tip that _did_ make it look sort of as though it were wearing a stupid little beanie (one piece of clothing, as it happened, that she’d never entirely managed to make stop stinking of cigarettes) … Although, if she were being completely honest, it bore its greatest resemblance to a part of her husband’s anatomy _other_ than his head. Seeing as that was the appendage Abe seemed to do most of his thinking with, though—what difference did it really make?

Grimacing as she relieved Thomas of his treasure, Mary dropped the fungus unceremoniously in the bin. “You have no idea,” she muttered, baby-talk long gone, “the fights your father and I have had about that _hat_.”

They sat in the center of a fairy ring, which probably would have felt a lot more magical if the mushrooms didn’t look so much like dicks. God, she was probably a terrible mother for letting her child even _look_ at them, much less pluck them up. But she couldn’t very well leave him inside alone, and rain in the nighttime meant gardening in the morning. That was what Mother had taught her, so that was what Mary would teach her children as well, and on and on through the generations, branches all rooted in a common purpose. Mother, ever sensible, had framed the ritual in pragmatism: _Rain brings mushrooms. Rain wakes the worms up. Rain makes the soil rich and pliable and new_. But four years of marriage had opened Mary’s eyes.

So what if she didn’t pull the mushrooms up right away? It wasn’t as though one more day with them would kill the roses. But the work was not _for_ the roses. It was for Mary herself—just as it had been for Mother, and just as it was for the thorn-chafed hands of all the other women who retreated to their gardens because the garden the only place where the air was clean enough to breathe. So Mary Woodhull, in her tennis skort and apron and gloves, stabbed her trowel into the soil while the sun beat sweat down her back and reveled in the sight of the very earth breaking open beneath her hand.

Sometimes you _had_ to break things before you could fix them. Sometimes you had to rip out the weeds, prune away the parasites and the dead growth—

—to leave the garden healthier and more beautiful than before.

Tossing the last little pecker in the trash, Mary smudged soil across her sweaty brow. Even before she turned, she steeled herself for disappointment. Then, once again, she glanced toward the house.

The garage empty. The lights dark.

Still no sign of Abe.

More and more often, these days, Mary fell asleep in the armchair waiting for him to come home. The next day, the same tired alibis: He’d been working. He’d been drinking with friends. He’d had a meeting with a professor at Columbia and ended up staying in the city, so what, did she really want him trying to get home that late after he’d been drinking, God, didn’t she trust him, didn’t she care about him at all?

Excuses she could swallow once or twice, sure—but this was going on _months_. Some nights, he crept home in the early hours of the morning, and she awoke in confusion to the click of the front door, slumped down in her chair. Last night, he had never come home at all.

They were supposed to go out for dinner. _One little errand_ , he’d said, he’d be right back, he just had to _take care of something_ first, and Mary hadn’t even minded all that much, after their initial fight; after all, she’d ended up needing to stay late at Whitehall anyway to cover while Mr. Hewlett snuck off to his date. That much had even felt like a victory. Maybe _her_ husband was beyond hope of ever realizing that spending time with family was a thousand times more important than whatever super-senior losers he chose to go drinking with, but she could still throw some sisterly solidarity the way of Mr. Hewlett’s lass by doing her part to help train _him_.

Well. She hoped Hewlett’s girlfriend had had a nice time on their date. She hoped he’d picked her up on time with an armful of flowers or chocolates or pure fucking Everclear, if that was more her style, and that he’d feasted her at a fancy restaurant with sexy waiters in tight pants, and that—oh God; it kind of made her gag a little to think of Mr. Hewlett … prim, prissy Mr. Hewlett, who wore his shirts buttoned to the chin, who had once gotten sick on bad oysters into Abe’s grandmother’s urn, and who reminded her, altogether, far too much of her _father-in-law_ … as anything other than a sexless, amphibious Ken doll, but—if his lady had enjoyed dinner enough to invite him home for coffee, Mary hoped for that mystery woman’s sake that Hewlett was a hell of a lot more worldly than he looked.

 _One_ woman in this damn city deserved to have had a pleasant evening, at least, because the only things Mary’s night had ended up consisting of were getting yelled at by Richard for aiding Hewlett’s escape, leaving six voicemails on her husband’s cell before she gave up, and falling asleep in her armchair to the siren song of soap-opera reruns with her toddler snuggled beneath one arm and the other wrapped around an empty bottle of Moscato that, oddly, had been full when she first sat down.

After all those voicemails, all she’d gotten from Abe was a text:

**Emergency @ Columbia. Don’t wait up.**

(She had, of course.)

(She _always_ did, _of course_.)

And as she slurped her sparkly sugary Moscato straight from the bottle, smacking the stickiness from her lips, she couldn’t stop herself from wondering whether his kisses would taste like smoke again when he came home.

Mary realized she’d been staring at her gardening shears for a bit longer than was healthy.

“…How about we go see Grandpa, Thomas,” she suggested with hollow cheer, putting aside thoughts of how _versatile_ shears were, really, how many different things they could snip right the hell off. “Maybe his garden’s sprouted a prick or two, too.”

And so it had. Quite a few pricks, in fact. All of them horribly overdressed for a humid Saturday in May and gathered around the table on the patio out back. Mary, cutting through the house with her bucket of tools in one hand and Thomas holding onto the other, groaned when she saw them through the window.

“How long have they been at it?” she asked Aberdeen as the housekeeper turned the corner, carrying a tray of drinks. Richard’s meetings with Richard’s friends meant scotch, no matter that it was barely eleven in the morning, as well as those pretentious little thimbles of espresso that made her brain rattle. Aberdeen rolled her eyes.

“Couple hours now? Me and the others, we’re putting bets on who passes out from booze or boredom first.” A nod toward the window, and her voice dropped. “My money’s on ol’ Mr. Oysters. Already caught him nodding off once; this time, I bet _he_ hits the floor, too, not just his lunch.”

“Don’t call him that. Just because he ate too many _one_ time—”

Aberdeen grimaced, eyes still haunted by that which they could not unsee.

“ _I_ had to clean that up, miss. _Me_.”

Mary patted her shoulder in sympathy, then peered out the window again, grateful for the cover of the potted plants.

Mary wondered how all these grand, powerful men—lawyers, bankers, members of Whitehall’s board; Mary knew every face too well—would scoff if she told them what an uncanny resemblance they bore to the girls in her book club. Men liked to think themselves above all that. They liked to think that gossiping over scotch was any different than gossiping over mimosas, and that it was not, in fact, gossiping at all, but _networking_ , of course. Bullshit. It was all the same mixture of courtesies barbed with cunning, friendship interlaced with rivalry, every word at once a flattery and a threat. Maybe Mary didn’t have much stomach for scotch, but she knew masks when she saw them.

The only man not wearing a smile was Mr. Hewlett. In fact, he—

“Good lord, he looks _terrible_ ,” Mary whispered, Hewlett sagging lower and lower in his chair even as she watched. Surrounded by a veritable fortress of espresso thimbles, he was making a valiant effort to wear something _almost_ like the glare he used whenever a junior associate fucked up especially badly, just … not quite. Usually, when he did that, he didn’t look as though he were about to literally pass out. The hand propping up his chin seemed to be the only thing keeping him upright, and Mary had to agree with Aberdeen that he looked about one particularly boring anecdote away from simply curling up beneath the table and taking a nap. “Bless his heart.”

“Man looks like he was up all night,” Aberdeen murmured. She managed to make it sound like a personality flaw, but Mary cringed as realization hit.

Oh god. His date. His lady. _Coffee_. Yes—Mary could make a fair guess about why _part_ of Mr. Hewlett, at least, might well have been “up.”

“Gram-pa,” burbled Thomas from across the room, just as Mary was thinking how dearly she wanted to never, ever acknowledge the existence of Mr. Hewlett’s penis ever again. She looked around just in time to see her son push open the screen door and toddle out onto the porch.

“…glad we’re all in agreement. With room for more staff, I see opportunity for expanding into new markets. Whitehall has always specialized in property and contract law, but if you brought on some experts in trademarks, for example, or—”

“Antitrust would be more useful. Or copyright,” interrupted Mr. Cooke, just as Mary swooped in and intercepted her son on his way to Grampa. Bless the potted plants, no one seemed to notice. They were all too focused on Mr. Cooke, who commanded their attention now just as insufferably as he did at Richard’s dinner parties with his self-aggrandizing stories and embellished tales. “Intellectual property—that’s the new landscape, you mark my words. Worth as much as real property these days. The Internet’s changing everything we once thought we knew about ownership and law.”

Of law, Mary wasn’t certain Mr. Cooke knew much, considering how poorly worded his company’s contracts had been before Whitehall got its hands on them, but of ownership, no one could deny his expertise. The man owned half of Setauket, from what she’d heard—including most of the building Whitehall leased offices in, in fact. Including the floors they were soon to be expanding into. She’d felt a little pang when she heard that news, to be honest. She and the receptionist of the marketing agency that used to occupy those floors had developed a sort of elevator rapport; Mary had gotten in the habit of bringing coffee down sometimes, and Jessie always showed her the best kitten videos. A pity they’d gone out of business so suddenly. And right after Jessie had told her their profits were up 200 percent from last year, too.

Well. Jessie must have been wrong.

“Consider the opportunities, Richard, if you get a foothold in that market.” Even Mr. Hewlett was paying attention to Cooke now, his eyes narrowed and his mouth a wide, flat gash. “As I’m sure David can tell you—” a nod to Mr. Franks, Whitehall’s stockbroker, “as investors adjust their portfolios to account for the increasingly international landscape of ecommerce, you, my friend, stand to make your services available to a host of new clientele … Clientele with a great deal of means, you understand—and I imagine that more than a few among them would be open to ventures such as you and I discussed in New York—”

“Forgive me, which ventures are that?” snipped Hewlett, his voice an iron blade. “Richard must have forgotten to fill me in.”

Cooke, Franks, and a couple of the other men—including Mr. Redman from their bank—all glanced at Richard as one. Her father-in-law, ever the anchor, simply rolled his shoulders and waved a hand.

“Nothing fully baked, Edmund—just dreams spun out of too much ale. Now. I think that’s enough business for one morning, wouldn’t you gentlemen agree?”

Flippant and dismissive, but Mary _knew_ that tone. She knew it from a thousand aborted arguments, when Richard would cut Abe off instead of engaging him, unfurling his morning newspaper like a fortress wall. It was a tone that meant the matter was closed and Richard didn’t want to hear another word.

It was the tone he used when he knew he was _wrong_.

Thomas, lucky for him, was not yet sentient enough to recognize that tone, though doubtless it would become all too familiar as he grew up. But he _did_ recognize his grandfather’s voice. And when he shrieked in delight at the sound of it, suddenly the potted plants weren’t much use.

Under ordinary circumstances, eavesdropping would probably have been grounds for a quality Richard Woodhull rant session—but when it came to Richard’s wrath, there was no shield quite like an armful of Thomas. She presented her babbling son like an offering to an angry god, then faded into the background as Richard chuckled over the boy. Half his business friends ignored her, of course, though some were kind enough to remark on what a sight for sore eyes she was, their eyes lingered tiresomely on her short skirt. Half of _those_ ones had to be reminded of her name, which was not, contrary to popular belief, “Abraham’s Wife.” Nevermind that she had been in meetings with half of them at Whitehall and hosted all of them at the dinner parties that Mary planned, organized, and mailed out handwritten invitations to, but which were held in Richard’s house in Richard’s name. She wondered how many of them even realized that the paralegal and the hostess were the same person—aside, of course, from Mr. Hewlett.

Who had his face buried in his hands, pinching the bridge of his nose. Mary drifted cautiously to his side.

“Mr. Hewlett, please don’t fire me for saying this, but you look like you could use a few dozen more cups of coffee.”

A groan. “To be _perfectly_ honest, dear girl, at this point you’d be kinder to fetch me a bottle of sherry or two, put me out of my misery for a time.” As a gale of self-congratulating guffaws went up, he cracked open one eye between his fingers to glare at his colleagues. “ _Strychnine_ would do in a pinch.”

“For you or for them?”

“Hmm. Were I your counsel, plausible deniability would, I believe, here be my advice.”

She smiled and rested her hip on the edge of the table, savoring his acerbity. It paired with her bitterness like merlot with bloody meat. How nice, amidst all this sunshine and false, businessy cheer, to find someone as miserable as she was. “Well, I hope your date went well, at least?” she asked, more than half hoping that the answer would be a resounding, rant-starting _no_.

But Mr. Hewlett just looked down at his espresso, lips twitching. And Mary stared with horror at the hickeys— _hickeys!_ as though he were _nineteen!_ —that peeked above his collar as he did.

“You know, I believe it did,” he murmured, losing the battle with his grin, and envy stabbed Mary right in the gut. She knew that smile. She used to wear one just like it, back when she was newly and stupidly in love. And what kind of miscarriage of cosmic justice was it that _Edmund Hewlett_ , of all people, got to wear love bites on his neck and the smile of someone still orgasm-drunk, while the only thing _Mrs._ Mary Woodhull had gotten to suck off lately was a bottle of wine?

 _Manners, Mary_ , her mother’s voice chastised, and Mary swallowed, though even her spit tasted sour. Manners. Yes. Wear her mask, follow her script. Offer all the little platitudes she knew were only _polite_.

“I’m—so happy for you, Mr. Hewlett. That’s wonderful. That’s great. How … nice for you both.” Satisfied, Mother? Well, that had better be enough, because Mary couldn’t stop herself from adding bluntly, “I had to tell Richard why you left early, by the way. He was really upset about it. I’m sorry if he takes it out on you.”

…She was a _little_ sorry.

“Oh, I’m aware. No matter, though! It’s all worked out well enough in the end,” he chirped, and sipped his espresso, damnably optimistic. Mary wished his girlfriend had offered some concealer for that neck. “I mean, yes, I did have to stay up all bloody night working on this nonsense, but—oh!” Startling so bad that his espresso spilled, he blinked down at the other side of his chair, far from Mary. “Ah. Um … Hello?”

“Hiiiiiii,” ventured a familiar little voice. Ah. Richard was busy shaking hands now, saying good-bye to his guests as they all stood to leave … which meant Thomas was on the loose. And maybe he remembered Mr. Hewlett from previous visits, or maybe it was just that toddlers, like cats, instinctively gravitated toward the people who wanted the least to do with them, but—well, the point was, her son was currently hanging on Hewlett’s sleeve and talking in the sort of nonsense only Mary really understood while holding up a muddy fistful of grass in the other.

This was clearly not a situation the Iliad had equipped Mr. Hewlett to deal with. “They’re for you,” Mary translated as her boss simply stared. “The ‘flowers.’”

“Oh. Um—” There was indeed _one_ flower in there, a ragged yellow dandelion. “Well, that’s very kind of him, but really not—”

“Mr. Hewlett, _take the flowers_.”

Mr. Hewlett was an only child. He’d never mentioned time spent looking after any little cousins or nieces of nephews, had never been married nor, as far as he’d mentioned to Mary, at least, dated any women who had children, and whenever he came over for dinner, he’d smile at Thomas from a distance as she and Abe played with their son or Richard bounced him on his knee, but he’d never made any effort to engage with Thomas himself. He struck her, overall, like one of those childless adults who appreciated the idea of children but found the reality of them confusing and more than a little disturbing. Too messy, too smelly, too illogical. If he’d ever had any, she bet he would have been a bit like her own father: generous but distant, proud but in an impersonal sort of way, less interested in the idea of his children as actual people and more as manifestations of his legacy. As though they were just a particularly volatile way of diversifying his stock portfolio, but a stable investment over the long term.

With Mr. Hewlett, of course, there would be the added complication of trying to explain to him that most toddlers did not understand classical allusion.

“Mr. Hewlett…” she nudged, preparing herself to swoop in and save Thomas’s self-esteem herself, but finally, he moved.

“Why … thank you very much, Thomas.” Far too grave and formal, still, but he seemed to be making an effort as he gingerly accepted the weeds. Mary noted he was careful not to touch the mud. “How very kind of you.”

But when he smoothed the mud off the dandelion and tucked it into his buttonhole, his hands were so reverent, and his smile so sincere, that Mary suddenly thought with guilt that perhaps he might have made a good father after all.

Might still make, with the right lady. And who was she to begrudge him the chance.

Softly, Mary managed a smile.

“Come here, you.” Mary scooped up her son, making him giggle as she pressed a kiss to his forehead, then began stage-whispering conspiratorially in his ear. “Now. Thomas. I hope Mr. Hewlett realizes we _have_ to meet his lady friend. Would you like that? He should bring her to the office sometime, or around for dinner, next time they’re free.”

But when she looked back over her shoulder with a smile so genuine even Mother couldn’t have faulted her for it, Mr. Hewlett’s own smile had slipped. “Ah,” he said, a single brittle syllable. “Well … um. Perhaps.”

“Well—to my Fourth of July party, at least. I’ve been planning it for months.” Her heart sank as, pursing his lips again, he glanced away. “…I understand if the war’s still a bit of a sore spot, but I figured, you know, after two and a half centuries, you could stand to endure one little—”

“Mary.” He looked up at her with more intensity than an eighteenth-century disagreement seemed to merit. “That is, I should have—I, ah, I feel I owe it to you to tell you that … my … lady friend. She’s—”

“Meeting’s over, Edmund. Mary, let the man be on his way.” Richard did not move to shake Mr. Hewlett’s hand. Merely eyed them both with sarcasm at the edges of his mouth. “I’m sure he’ll be wanting to get back to Mrs. Strong.”

There was a moment in which Mr. Hewlett looked stung and in which Mary’s thoughts stuttered, paralyzed by what she’d misheard. Because she _had_ misheard. She _must_ have misheard. And then, in the next moment, Hewlett was frowning, and Mary was porcelain: a ceramic doll, frozen and fragile, unable to close her eyes.

“Actually, Richard, I need to speak with you in private. As I was reviewing the proposal last night, I noticed some inconsistencies between our records, and, well—I’m concerned—”

“Your concerns will have to wait. I’ve an appointment with the DA about—”

“Excuse me,” Mary whispered. She doubted they even heard. They were serious, powerful men, after all, and she nothing more than a girl, clinging tight to her son as she fled into the garden and out of sight.

How many women were there in Setauket, she wondered as her heart pounded, between the ages of twenty-five and forty. Hundreds, must be. _Thousands_. How many of them were single? How many of them were beautiful, how many of them were intelligent, how many of them followed paths that were likely to cross with Hewlett’s? How many of them would be willing to look at his expensive wristwatch rather than his unconventional face long enough to sink to their knees before him, let him shower them with flowers and dinners and presents in return? No matter how you cut it, shouldn’t there have been _dozens_ of other women in this city who might have caught his eye?

So why was it that the men in Mary’s life could not seem to keep their dicks out of Anna Strong?

 _I will never be rid of you, will I_ , she thought as she hid behind the rosebushes, clenching her fist so hard it trembled. And that was the _point_ , wasn’t it? This was no issue of crossed paths or coincidences; this was no impersonal cosmic joke. Mary had _been there_ that day at Whitehall, when Anna lost her shop. She had seen Hewlett drenched in coffee and Anna with her face all twisted with hate. Anna, who had taken a married man to bed long after he belonged to her and stained his tongue with smoke. No chance in hell that a woman who had always held so bitterly to her sorrow and rage would simply _happen_ to cross paths with Hewlett again, much less ever, _ever_ forgive him.

So what was it? Was it all about Abraham, even now—an excuse to weave her life back into theirs, so that Anna could drop by Whitehall to see Hewlett, come to the Woodhulls’ parties with Hewlett, then sneak off while their backs were turned and draw Abe back into her arms? Mary had to put Thomas down and sit in the flowerbed, the thought made her so sick. Or maybe—a vicious hope—maybe Hewlett himself was the target. Mary couldn’t say exactly how much money the man had, but it must have been a hell of a lot more than Anna, after all. Once, she’d have thought Anna too proud for that. But how much pride could be left in a woman who’d ruined her own life so thoroughly that she now had nothing better to do than ruin Mary’s?

It must have been easy. With those heavy breasts and those powerful hips and the dark, soulful eyes that made men think there must be more to her than just a bitter, lonely bitch. She had been weeping the first time Mary ever saw her. In the cemetery on the hill, burying Abe’s brother, Mary’s first and most fleeting love. Mary looked snotty and swollen and wind-chafed when she cried. Anna looked _deep_. Blessed by nature with that haunted sort of loveliness that only grew sharper with sorrow, and who could resist that? Men were such stupid creatures, after all, and Hewlett, despite all his education, even stupider than most. A dear, sweet idiot once you got to know him, sure, but an idiot nonetheless. That had always been one of Mary’s favorite things about him. What a relief, amid so many snakes, to know one man who was so stupid that he couldn’t even figure out how to make people _like_ him, much less how to deceive them with charm. No matter how much Shakespeare Hewlett spouted, he’d always be an idiot in all the ways that mattered, and oh, how easy it must have been. All Anna would have had to do was _look_ at him—maybe squeeze out a few damsel-in-distress tears—and he’d probably squirted in his shorts.

And Mary had _helped_. She’d covered for Hewlett. Encouraged him. Given him _advice_. She had been helping _Anna Strong_.

Did Hewlett know? About Anna and Abraham? About their past—about their _present?_ Had Anna told him what she’d told Mary, that day she’d helped Anna carry her pathetic leaf boxes to the museum? When Hewlett thanked Mary for her help yesterday and told her how she was such a _friend_ , had he known that the woman he was off to shove his prick in had fucked Mary’s husband more times than either of them could ever count, had done it while they each wore someone else’s ring?

She thought of Hewlett’s hesitation, of the way he’d averted his eyes.

He knew.

He just didn’t care.

 _My friend_ , she thought bitterly, and cursed the allergies that made her sniff. Men and their mushrooms, so easily led. Well. To hell with Hewlett _and_ his penis. A _friend_ would warn him of Anna’s wiles, but he’d forfeited that protection when he made her complicit. To hell with those marks on his neck, too, and with the lips they matched. Mary curled herself around the hollow in her belly and tried not to imagine those same lips branding Abe. Tried not to imagine all the things she must have done with Abraham—the things she maybe _still_ did with Abraham—this woman who had haunted Mary’s marriage since the beginning, the mere _memory_ of her still more enticing to her husband than the wife who had borne his _child_ and who always, _always_ waited up for him at night—

Mary’s eyes opened as one thought crystallized among all else.

Anna had been with Hewlett last night.

In _Hewlett’s_ arms. In _Hewlett’s_ company. In _Hewlett’s_ bed.

…So if Abraham had not been with Anna … Where had he been?

 

\---

 

Mary Woodhull loved her husband.

She _loved_ him, and that was the worst part. There were days she wished she didn’t. Days she wished she cared little enough to slide her wedding ring off her finger and go home from the bar with some soulful-eyed stranger of her own. They could have agreed to hold things together until Thomas and any other children were old enough, then filled the years with their separate affairs until it was finally time for divorce. But no: her luck being what it was, she _loved_ him. She loved him when he moaned into her neck but didn’t press his lips there; she loved him when he spent whole nights away from home; she loved him so desperately it gutted her, spilled her entrails around her like a fairy ring while her blood ran down his throat. And the love that made her dig her nails into his shoulders and cling to him, breathless, as he snapped his hips against hers was the same love that made her clench her hand so tight around her trowel as she stabbed into the earth.

She loved him even after what he’d done with Anna. And even if he’d found yet another woman now … Even if it was a new girl, lovelier than them both, with whom he now spent his nights … She would love him. She always would.

But the _not knowing_ gnawed at her from within.

Not until that afternoon did Abe finally come home. His hair smelled of coffee, his sweatshirt stank of ink, and a crust of dried blood rimmed the edge of his bruised, blotchy nose. The sight of that blood spiked her with fear, but she dared not ask what had happened. She simply laid her hand, still smudged with soil, on his cheek and told him all the things she knew. About Anna … about how he’d fucked her, and when. She cupped his pale, guilty face in her hands and whispered, _I know. I know_.

And she kissed him, then, to make certain he understood.

“I forgive you. I’ll _always_ forgive you. You don’t need to keep secrets from me.”

“…I’m _not_.”

“Then tell me where you were.”

Abe looked her in the eyes, a long, deep look full of blue. Then he turned away, and silent, he walked upstairs.

For the first time, Mary searched his pockets when she did laundry that weekend. All she found was a box of matches in is sweatshirt. The cardboard printed with a checkerboard pattern and—prominently; like a logo—the number 723.

Mary held the sweatshirt to her face, but it didn’t smell of smoke.

The days crawled by on eggshells, and everywhere Mary went, she carried a silence. Who was she supposed to talk to? Her sneaking husband? Rachel and Lydia, who would sympathize about shit men to her face but then tell the whole town behind her back? Mr. Baker, who carried himself with that awful kicked-puppy optimism and who would surely shatter into unbearable, smothering pity if he ever learned the truth about the Woodhull family, so charmed, so close-knit? Richard, who thundered around Whitehall like a stormcloud these days, or Hewlett, who still treated her like they were _such friends_?

First thing Monday, he’d taken her aside and wasted far too many precious minutes of Mary’s life apologizing in torturous detail for not telling her that (for weeks now! for _months!_ ) he’d been “courting” Anna Strong. And like the fool he was, he’d actually _believed_ her when she said that of course she wasn’t upset.

“And to think,” he laughed in palpable relief, “I feared you might be—I don’t know … _offended?_ Considering your, ah, history with Anna. Silly of me, I know!”

“Nonsense, Mr. Hewlett. I hope you’re both very happy together.”

False friends deserved one another, after all.

But if Mary was upset, it was nothing compared to Richard. His anger surprised even Anna, in fact. Not that she would expect him to be _happy_ that his former friend’s daughter was back in their lives, but Richard seemed to take Hewlett’s relationship as not only a personal affront but a deliberate act of defiance—and Richard never could bear to be defied.

Soon enough, Whitehall’s two senior partners were striking sparks every time they crossed paths. They bickered about everything from company policies to coffee brands; snipped at each other in meetings, never too overt in front of others, their barbs just polite enough that even Mary might not have noticed them if she didn’t know both men so well. They shut themselves away for long conversations behind closed doors, their voices loud enough to hear the rhythm of but too low to make out the words.

And once, when she was working late and the office had all but cleared out, she heard a snarl of voices in Richard’s office followed by the slamming of a door. When Hewlett stormed out, Mary wondered for the first time whether there was more to their disagreement than Anna Strong.

The next day, Hewlett brought her a coffee the way she liked it, which couldn’t have been more suspicious if he’d had a mustache to twirl. And he’d asked her, in a lighthearted tone that reminded her unpleasantly of Abe, whether she’d ever heard the name Culper.

“No, I can’t say I have. Is it for a case?”

“No. Ah. Yes. Yes, though not on any … official basis. I’ve … taken on some work on my own time, you see—some matters for Anna, for example, concerning her late husband’s estate.” Ah, yes. Poor Selah. Once she’d learned _that_ detail, it had cinched the certainty in Mary’s mind. Anna’s husband not merely missing but now presumed _dead_ —who could blame her, really, for finding some wealthy sap willing to look after her while she got back on her feet. Hewlett continued, “As well as some … other matters. Entirely pro bono, you understand.”

Pro bono. Yes, she imagined it was something like that.

“You’re certain you’ve never heard it?” he wheedled, because of course a young girl like herself might not know her own mind. “Not even a … glancing mention over dinner, perhaps…?”

“I’m really, _really_ sure.”

Hewlett worried his lower lip a moment, as though considering saying more. Mary braced herself for Shakespeare. Thank the lord, Hewlett simply shook his head.

“Ah, well. I didn’t imagine _you_ would be the sort to know anyway, but it was worth a try. Ah, there is—one more thing, however, if you have the time…”

A glance over his shoulder, and he leaned in close to her desk. “Seeing as the server’s something of a labyrinth, and you navigate it far better than I, I was wondering whether you might be good enough to help me gather some of our archived files? Payroll records, billing hours and such, contracts pertaining to particular cases—I’ll make you a list. And our tax records. Um. If you would.”

Mary stared at Hewlett. His smile wavered, but held in place, wide and tight-lipped and innocent. She’d been wrong about him, she realized. He wasn’t too stupid to be capable of using charm for deceit. Just too stupid to do it _well_.

“…Is _this_ for a case?”

“Oh, no no no, I … Well, it’s just such a _mess_ , you know. The server. Files missing, contracts in hard copy that don’t match the ones in digital, records buried twenty subfolders deep, I can’t stand it. I’ve a mind to play Linneaus, you see—try to impose some sort of logical classification upon it all. An Ariadne’s guidance would be of _immense_ help. Oh, and—”

An overly beleaguered sigh. Thank the lord Hewlett had never pursued the stage. “Richard … thinks this all rather a waste of time, I’m afraid. Much though I’ve tried to convince him otherwise. So perhaps let’s not mention it to him just yet.”

He seriously thought she was fool enough to fall for that.

She’d be an even greater fool, however, to turn down the opportunity of frontline insight into whatever Hewlett was up to. So she smiled vapidly and said _of course_ she would help.

The silence persisted. It deepened over long evenings spent staying late to help Hewlett track down increasingly odd odds and ends, and it became nigh unbearable after Abe, free from school for the summer, came aboard at Whitehall as a summer associate yet again. Richard and Hewlett catfighting like an old married couple was one thing, but throw Abe into the mix, and the vitriol turned downright venomous.

Even when they weren’t fighting, Abe’s mere presence at the office choked her. She couldn’t escape his awareness of him there no more than she could the absence of him when, again and again, quitting time came around and he suddenly had some excuse about why he couldn’t come home.

She _loved_ him. He _knew_ she loved him.

So why did he still _lie?_

Mary’s heart beat sharp as the _snick, snick, snick_ of her pruning shears.

What could be worse than cheating? What could he possibly still have to hide?

It must be awful, whatever he was up to. It must be worse than she could conceive.

She ripped toadstools from beneath the rosebushes, knowing their roots still laced the soil and that they’d simply grow back with the next rain. If only she could _burn_ them out—feed them kerosene till their mycelia throbbed with it; set a match to the tip of one of those stupid caps and watch the whole ring go up in flames, veins of fire lacing the soil beneath her feet, as she stood in the center and let the heat lick her face. Once the fire died out, only the roses would be left.

As the nights wore on and the bags beneath her eyes grew heavy and dark, she found herself rambling her worries to Thomas, as he babbled and played; she even paid a visit to his namesake in that cemetery on the hill. Both very good at listening, her Thomases. Neither particularly good at giving advice.

She tried—she _truly_ tried—to put it all out of her head. Close her eyes to Abe’s comings and goings. Close her ears to her boss’s quarrels, muffled behind office walls. Be the docile girl they all wanted to be. And she might have succeeded, eventually, if not for Hewlett’s stupid pet project.

It was such a stupid little thing. She’d been pulling old billing records for him and had nearly overlooked it entirely. But when she realized, she printed it all out and took it to Hewlett, rapping on the window of his office before letting herself in.

“…just simpler that way, honestly. I know you love a good challenge, my dear, but short of _wanting_ to make life difficult for yourself, I can’t imagine why you would—” Stopping himself, he pinched the bridge of his nose and spent several seconds listening to the person on the other end of the line with brows knit before sighing into his phone. “Of _course_ not. _No_. It’s not … a matter of competency, darling, or whether I think you capable. It’s simply what makes the most _sense_.”

A glance Mary’s way, and a lifted finger to indicate he wouldn’t be but a moment, which was good, because if she had to hear one more term of endearment, Mary might’ve reenacted the oyster event. His voice grew soft. “All right, then. Yes, I should be able to get off. Miss you too, love.” Mary gagged a little. “See you soon.

“Anna,” he explained as he hung up, as though she honestly couldn’t figure that out. “I’ve been trying to convince her—she was going to go to the bank out and take out a _loan_ , did you know, to cover her outstanding bills and the expenses of Selah’s memorial. As though she wouldn’t have had to put practically everything she owns for collateral! When I’d be perfectly happy to let her borrow from _me_ at no interest! I don’t understand it, I really don’t.”

“…What did she decide in the end?”

Hewlett puffed himself up like a proud pigeon.

“She’s seen sense, of course. She’s a very sensible woman, after all.”

Not bad, Anna. Play on his chivalry, put up a token protest to really make it think it was his idea, though not enough that he’d back down—and with no formal contract, what recourse would he have if she never even paid back the principal? Mary bit her lip, torn between telling him or not. “…Do you think that’s wise? Mixing business and … pleasure?”

“…What do you mean?”

“…Nevermind. I … found something I thought you’d want to see.”

Standing beside his chair, she spread her printouts over the desk.

“Years ago—before I started here, even—we used to represent the owner of a property on the outskirts of NYC. A bar called The 723. I don’t know if you know, but this back around when Mr. Cooke’s firm started buying up a lot of Setauket and the surrounding areas: the city, Oyster Bay … That part of town wasn’t as developed back then, mostly small businesses, residential areas, not like now. A lot of restaurants and the like. Most new restaurants don’t last more than a couple years, you know, so, as leases expired and businesses failed, I guess, Cooke kept buying the lots. Eventually, he owned the entire block. Except for The 723.

“From what I can tell, he definitely _tried_ buying it—see, we’ve got a note here about it getting as far as negotiations, at least—but the bar was doing solid business, never missed a mortgage payment, was close to being payed off outright, in fact. Cooke submitted an offer to buy the property and the debt, at quite a markup, in fact, but the owner wouldn’t budge. Not that it mattered, in the end. He ended up getting evicted on breach of contract—” She slid forward the eviction notice, the contract, the bill of sale, “—and Cooke got the property for almost nothing.”

“Mary, this is all … very diverting,” Hewlett murmured, putting on his reading glasses to squint down at the page, “but why—”

“Look.”

She laid one French-manicured nail along a line of fine print in the lease. The bar’s address:

723 Culper Circle.

Hewlett grew very still. He slid the papers away from her and leafed through them slowly, sitting back in his chair.

“…What became of the establishment?”

“Mr. Cooke leveled the block to build office buildings, and the city renamed some of the streets after war heroes. Culper Circle hasn’t even existed for years.”

“And the owner?”

“He filed a suit against us, alleging fraud, but it didn’t go anywhere. Claimed we’d falsified the terms of his contract. That it was a conspiracy to get his property by force, and that he never should have lost his bar. Naturally, he had no evidence, and our records all checked out. I couldn’t find anything about him after that.”

“…Thank you, Mary. You’ve been … a very great help.”

He did not sound pleased. He sounded tired and resigned. And as Mary left, she heard him on his cell phone once more, saying with none of the warmth he’d shown Anna, “We need to talk.”

Yet something nagged at her as she returned to her desk. Something familiar about all this mess, though she couldn’t put her finger on it. She pulled up the PDFs on her screen again, clicking through them while chewing on the end of her pen. Then it hit her.

723.

The matchbox in Abe’s sweatshirt. The one that had felt so worn—so old.

What was he doing carrying around a matchbox from a bar several years defunct?

The air conditioning always ran too cold in Whitehall. Mary huddled her arms around herself and glanced at Hewlett’s office, where he was still on the phone. Brows knitted, eyes hard, mouth a deep slash of frown—that was not the face of a man having a pleasant chat. Who was he talking to? What was this all about? Nothing good, she could sense that much; she knew it with a cold certainty in her heart. And if Abe was wrapped up in it—if _this_ was what kept him out at night—

Oh God—what had she _done?_

Meddled in something she didn’t understand. Aided the enemy, yet again. Painted a target on her husband’s back. Mary’s hands fumbled with her purse, shaking, as she made up some excuse to Baker about feeling ill and fled the office.

If Abe knew the part she’d played—he’d hate her. That would be the last straw, the last secret between them—she’d never get him back. But who could she talk to, who was left, who did she have in all the world who understood Abe’s secretive heart—

Halting in the middle of the sidewalk, Mary fumbled for her phone.

“Setauket Coffee Co, Anna speaking.”

That voice.

Mary had forgotten it, almost. Forgotten the depth of it, that huskiness that paired so well with Anna’s sadness—so unlike the soft, gentle tones Mary had trained herself to. That voice was raw as blood and bereft of all pretense. Struck, for a moment, by the memory of a time not so long ago, when she could still bear to stop by for a cup of lemon verbena and when she had _truly_ begun to believe that she and this dark mirror of what her life might have been might someday manage to be friends, Mary clutched the phone to her ear and tried to remember how to speak.

“Hello? …Edmund? Is something wrong?”

All Mary’s words caught in her throat. _Help me. I think Abraham’s in trouble. I think he’s up to something again, like in the old days, but won’t tell me what. And he’s come home with blood on his face and everybody’s fighting and I’m so—I’m so … please. If your feelings for him are still half of his for you. Please, won’t you—_

“Selah?” whispered Anna, and the sound was so haunted that Mary hung up at once.

…Mary had met Selah Strong, of course.

 _Known_ him—no. Not known him, per se. From the way Abe talked, she wasn’t entirely certain anyone had really known Selah, besides _maybe_ his wife. But when he’d vanished more than a year ago, he had been the talk of the town … for a time.

All the girls in Mary’s book club had tut-tutted over it with such relish. Poor Mrs. Strong. All their thoughts were with her. Until a more interesting scandal arose.

Mary’s heart was pounding. She pressed the phone to her chest and wanted to vomit for ever imagining that that was how everyone must think of Selah by now: like a piece of gossip long since out of date.

She did not call Anna again.

She waited in her armchair for Abraham, turning the matchbox over in her lap as she considered her options. He was going out of town this weekend. An alum retreat with his fraternity. That would be the time to do it. If she couldn’t make him see sense.

A click at the front door. Mary lifted her head.

“Whatever you’re doing … Don’t.”

In the atrium, a shadow froze. Abe looked at her from the doorway, an unreadable silhouette.

“...Not sure what you’re talkin’ about, Mary.”

“Don’t lie. It will only make you ill.” A scoff, a shake of the shadow’s head; standing, Mary rushed after him as he stormed upstairs. “You are getting too old for this, Abraham! It affects Thomas what you do, you know! Bad enough you’re never home—if something happened to you—if you got caught—”

“Yeah, well, last I checked, you weren’t my mother, all right, so just—”

Digging her claws into his sweatshirt, Mary pulled him into the wall. “I am your _wife!"_

Never had Abe looked at her like this. As though she were every bit as real as he was. There at the top of the staircase, with the light from their bedroom slicing the narrow space between their lips, Mary stretched up on tiptoe and flattened her body against his.

“I am your wife, and I need you. Your son needs you. _We_ are your duty. We are where you should be. So whatever you’re doing, I am begging you to stop before anyone else figures it out. Because they will.” Her hands cupped his cheeks hard, her fingernails imprinting on her skin, and she hated how her voice wobbled when she spoke. “And I can’t lose you when they do.”

Silence, for a moment. Then Abe sighed. Her fingernail snicked his skin as he pulled his face away, and when he pressed his lips to her hair, it was with a thin line of red crossing the hollow of his cheek.

“You won’t. You won’t.” She shivered at the lowness of his voice and the heat of his hands at her waist. “Nothing’s gonna happen to me, Mary. It’s just a little longer. Just gotta take care of a few more things. Then I promise I’ll be home.”

“Just tell me. I could help…”

Lips brushing her forehead as he shook his head. His nose nudged her nose, and then his mouth her mouth, taking her breath away; his hand curled in her scalp. Mary thrilled in the clashing of their teeth as her fingers fumbled with his belt.

And once he was sleeping, she slipped from the covers with her cunt aching and cum still wet on her thighs. Naked, she took his phone from his pocket and smiled to see that he’d told their bank's website to remember the password to his account. She scrolled down his credit card statement, past subway fares and Subway sandwiches and tabs for a dozen different bars, till she found a charge from the night he’d brought the matchbox home. A POS terminal linked to a phone number and an address on a Manhattan street.

 

\---

 

“Ah! Come in, fair lady, come in! Is it morning already? All evening, our fine city has been cursed with such dreary skies—but it’s as if the sun has banished the darkness now that you’ve arrived.”

Lamps dazzled her, dazed her, left her spinning on the threshold of the white-fronted shop as a hand behind her shoulders ushered her inside. Mary cringed, blinking spots from her eyes. Slowly, the glar resolved into an expanse of floral-patterned housecoat as a great, gaudy, gregarious man leaned around her with a gap-toothed grin.

“Welcome, my dear, to The Corner!”

It was … a bookstore. Hewlett’s little Culper project, Abe’s trail of treachery and deceit … had led her to a bookstore. A perfectly normal, quaint independent bookstore, complete with faux-antique wood panelling, the usual assortment of hipsters, hippies, and professorial types browsing the stacks, and a cafe tucked off to one side. It was _possible_ Mary had seen less nefarious locales, but she honestly couldn’t remember.

The only non-ordinary thing about the situation was that _most_ shopkeepers, notwithstanding certain tea-selling ones who couldn’t keep themselves to themselves, tended to be less _handsy_ with their customers. “ _Excuse_ me—” Mary began pointedly, but found her feet running away with her as the proprietor herded her deeper into the land of literature.

“And how may we help you this evening, my dear? Are we looking for anything in particular? A history, a mystery, a ro- _mance_?” His tongue gave the R a rolling flourish to match the grand gesture of his hand. A wag of his finger and a cheshire grin. “Ah, yes … I can see straight away that you possess a most _sophisticated_ literary palate. Fortunately, we stock all the latest best-sellers, yes, and the classics too, nothing but the best for such a _lovely_ —”

“The last thing this establishment needs is a harassment case, James,” cut in a dry voice from across the room. Mary and Apparently James alike glanced toward the cafe. “I’m sure the lady will inquire if she needs help.”

The barista minding the cafe could not have looked more different from the man at her side. If the one was a peacock in his floral housecoat and silks, the other must be a vulture, to dress so drab and dark … And yet it was the peacock who had swooped down upon her so hungrily, his teeth hidden behind perfumed words, while the gaunt vulture hung back, aloof. Which of them, she wondered, had the sharper claws?

“That’s so very kind of you, sir. If I need any help finding something, I promise you’ll be the first to know.” Ordinarily, she’d have thought a man who smelled so strongly of rosewater might not be the sort to fall for a young woman’s charms, but a smile and a pat on his hand had him all fawning and flattered nonetheless. Men and their mushrooms indeed. Mary’s smile turned apologetic. “But you’ll have to excuse me. I’m afraid I only came in for a drink.”

“Alas,” she heard him lament behind her as she headed toward the cafe. “Youth triumphs over experience yet again! One of these days, young man, the world will recognize my charms!”

“One of these days, old man, you will find yourself being sued,” quipped the barista without even looking up. He was leaning on the counter, tapping on the screen of his phone. Not even once Mary stood before him did he stop, though he did speak.

“Please excuse our Mr. Rivington,” he drawled, punctuating the statement with a tap. “He has something of a weakness for women like you.”

Mary wondered what sort of woman she was. She wondered whether men had the first idea how many kinds of women there were, really, even though so many of them tried to wear the same mask. Setting her purse on the counter, she muttered, “Well, I wish he had your forbearance.”

The barista’s mouth twitched. A neat, slender man dressed all in black, he had hair a shade darker than her own and seemed to suffer from an acute case of resting bitch face. Or maybe it was more that classic Millennial malaise: vaguely bored by the world, vaguely annoyed by it, and vaguely amused. But only ironically, of course.

“Oh, I have a weakness or two,” he mused, finally closing out his phone. Just before the screen went dark, Mary glimpsed a game of online checkers. Looking at her now, expression still closed-off and a little sardonic, he offered: “Tea? Coffee? Something stronger, perhaps?”

“Tea, please,” Mary answered without thinking, then kicked herself. Why had she said that? Her mind echoed with a haunted voice, a sorrowful gaze. Uneasy, Mary dropped her gaze to her purse. “Or—whatever you recommend.”

As he filled her order, Mary let her eyes trail over the shop … its architecture, its patrons, the quiet hum of its rhythm and the affected charm of its decor … and felt her heart sink at the sheer _normalcy_ of it all. She must have been wrong. About the Culper thing, about Abraham. What mischief could anyone possibly get up to _here?_ A tryst in the Poetry section? Plotting to overthrow the government behind Teen Nonfic?

Was this what Anna had done, after _her_ husband disappeared? Followed the breadcrumbs she found in his pockets to a thousand mediocre dead ends?

“Here we are. Our homemade kombucha—the house special- _tea_ , if you will.”

Mother would be mortified: Mary was so on edge that she forget to even say thanks. “Excuse me—I was wondering—do you get a lot of regulars in here?”

The barista’s expression, otherwise so impassive, flickered. It was only a slight arching of his eyebrows, but Mary had been raised to read masks. “Looking for someone?”

“Yes. Yes, my … friends set me up with with this guy—he’s the one who suggested we meet here—but I’ve never met him, and I—”

“A student?”

“…Columbia, I think.”

“I thought as much. Most of our customers are, you see.” A subtle inclination of his head toward a sign she hadn’t noticed till then: 15% OFF WITH STUDENT ID. Her heart plumbed uncharted depths as he continued: “We stock textbooks, you see, at rather a markdown compared to campus stores, so they tend to flock. Unfortunately … with so many new faces each semester … Well. As you can imagine, they all tend to blur.”

 _Congratulations, Mary. You caught Abe bargain hunting_. Still, she fumbled for her phone. As Facebook loaded, she begged, “Just take a look. Please. Maybe he comes in a lot?”

Never had she been more grateful she wasn’t in her husband’s profile picture. Desperate, Mary showed him Abe’s face.

The barista leaned over, nonchalant.

And a muscle jumped in his jaw.

“You know him,” breathed Mary. Eyes so light a brown they were nearly golden—bird of prey eyes—flicked between her and the phone.

“Sorry. I’m afraid I don’t.”

“You do,” she insisted, because when would these boys realize that she wasn’t an _idiot?_ Oh, he would make a fine poker player, this barista, but she’d found his tell. This was one of the most stoic humans she’d ever met. If he hadn’t recognized Abraham, his jaw wouldn’t have twitched; and if he had known him only from the purchase of the occasional latte, he wouldn’t have averted his eyes from Mary now and immediately turned away. If there was nothing to hide, he wouldn’t _lie_.

“Please,” she begged, following him to the end of the counter. He pretended to busy himself with washing a blender, but it would take more than a faucet to drown Mary out. “Look. Just tell me … Does he meet anyone? What does he do here? Is it _dangerous?_ Is it against the law?”

“Do you dig so deeply into all your blind dates?” Though his voice was dry and level, he still avoided her gaze. “Background checks, polygraphs? Curricula vitae with references available upon request?”

Mary’s fist clenched her purse handle. It took all her breeding not to pull an Anna Strong and startle something _real_ out of him by tossing her tea in his face.

“ _Look_. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care about your stupid little lawsuits or your stupid little Culper thing.” Plastic clattered on metal as the barista almost fumbled the blender into the sink. “All I want is to keep my husband _safe_. So if you know anything at all—”

“Apologies. It’s time for my break. I’m sure Mr. Rivington would be delighted to assist you if you’d like another drink.” Rudely, he pushed past her without a second glance. “James! It seems the lady is looking for a mystery after all.”

“No, wait, _listen_ to me—”

Outside a door marked Employees Only, Mary seized his arm.

“I just want to help him.” Mary’s voice was soft and raw. She slid her hand down to rest within his and gazed up at him with every ounce of delicate damselly sadness in her body. “I’d do anything to protect him. He _needs_ me, no matter what he may think. How can I protect him when I don’t even know from _what_?”

A single downward glance at their hands, slow and measured. Without even a flicker in his expression, he pulled his free. As he stepped through the door, Mary hissed the only other thing she could think to say:

“Don’t you _dare_ let him end up like Selah Strong!”

The barista stopped. He glanced over his shoulder at her with a emotion less guarded than any she’d yet seen. Lips parted; eyes wary; hesitation on the tip of his tongue. For a moment, her heart leapt with hope.

Then he pulled the door shut behind himself, and Mary stood staring at the door with fists clenched, trying not to choke on her frustration. Until—

—an arm around her shoulders, and a honeyed voice in her ear.

“Did I hear, my darling, the name _Selah Strong_?”

Mr. Rivington smelled of ink and coffee and promises—the perfumed, powdered scent of a bathroom in a nice restaurant, the sort of place where girls comforted one another in hushed voices and doled out sage advice to strangers as they fixed their makeup and steeled themselves to face the world. But soft though the rest of him was, his eyes were gimlet sharp.

“How…” Mary fought the urge to pull away. “…How do you know about Selah?”

Rivington sighed. A sigh as expansive as the rest of him; a sigh that carried them as he strolled her, his arm around her back, through the shelves. The store had emptied out while she’d been occupied Only a few bookworms lingered now, and unease made Mary’s steps short and stiff.

“A _tragic_ story, that. Such _rumors_ I recall hearing, what was it—a year, two years ago? And now a beautiful widow, a ship lost at sea—why, it’s like a penny novel! The forums are all aflutter with it of late. A guilty pleasure, I confess. Absolutely ridiculous, those conspiracy websites, but they do hold a certain lurid allure. Well, the gossips worship mysteries. But I sense that, like myself, _you_ , my dear … seek to dispel them.”

Thick fingers, bedecked with rings, danced over a row of spines. “Now, let’s see here … Aha!”

The book he pulled down for her was a collection of botanical prints, its cover colorful and gloss. “A fitting read for the loveliest rose of them all. On the house, my dear.”

“Thank you, but that’s really not—”

“Oh, I _insist._ Just allow me to personalize it for you—in case you have any questions, you understand,” he purred, flipping to the title page and scribbling down what she had a nauseating suspicion was a phone number. “The _only_ thing I ask in return is that you return sometime and bless me with your presence again.”

Somehow, she managed a sickly smile as she accepted the book.

“…Thank you. Um. _James_ , isn’t it? Tell me, your friend in the cafe—”

“Oh, young Robert is the greatest mystery of all, I’m afraid. I don’t even know whether he has a woman in his life, or a man, for that matter. No, my dear, I fear you’re wasting your time there.” She hardly even noticed him steering her to the front door until they’d reached it. With an impish smile, he tapped the book. “Trust me, darling: you shall find what I offer _much_ more satisfying.”

Mary nearly threw the damn book in the gutter as she left. She was so pissed that she forgot to even mutter an apology to the tall man she bumped into on the sidewalk until he called after her, in a voice high and odd, to tell her that she’d dropped her ring. Instead of placing it in her palm, he took her hand in his and slipped in on her finger just as Abe had years ago. The brush of his skin and the pale blue of his eyes made Mary shudder. He was still looking at the bookstore, his auburn hair curling in the breeze, when she hurried away.

At home, she _did_ throw the book, hurling it onto her bed so violently that it slid and fell off the other side. Mary rather felt like joining it on the floor. She could roll under the bed like a discarded toy and see how long it took Abe to notice she was gone. Wiping her eyes, she went to retrieve it, wondering how many more nights in the armchair she could take.

The book lay butterflied on the hardwood, face down, the pages askew. When she turned it over, it fell open to the title page.

Mary blinked. Staring at the note scribbled beneath the title, she sank to her knees. And she forgot about the tears on her face as she read what Rivington had written there, which was not a phone number at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rivington quotes himself from 3.02 ("Is it morning already?"; "It’s as if the sun has banished the darkness"; "While others worship mysteries, I seek to dispel them"), as does Robert from 3.04 ("I have a weakness or two"), with Mary taking an alteration of Andre's line ("I wish I had your forbearance.") Mary, meanwhile, quotes / paraphrases herself from 1.01 ("Whatever you're doing. Don't. We can't afford to lose you. I can't.").
> 
> I HOPE YOU'RE EXCITED TO SEE BOBBY T because I have been working on this chapter in one form or another for like two months now just dying to finally get to post Bobby T! (To the Tumblr anon a few weeks ago who suggested he be in LOA: I was delighted by your ask, mysterious friend; you're very prescient! I wanted to tell you that heck yes he'd be here, but I didn't want to spoil the surprise.) I am ... SO SICK of looking at this chapter, actually! It was quite a struggle. But! I hope you've enjoyed it (light on the Annlett though it was, alas!), and as ever, I would absolutely love, love, love to hear what you think, if you're so inclined. Seeing comments in my inbox here (and I love talking to y'all on tumblr, but it's easier to keep track of comments on AO3) is the best motivation in the world.
> 
> Next time: [The Boys](http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/37600000/Ben-Caleb-turn-tv-series-37695362-900-600.jpg) are back in town! Trying to get back on something of a schedule here, so I aim to have 21 up in about three weeks. Thanks for readin'!


	21. Kykeon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edmund Hewlett, past, present, and future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your lovely comments last time -- I'm so thrilled you enjoyed Robert and Mary! One thing up front: The Boys aren't in this chapter. I know. I promised. I'm the worst. All I can say in my defense is that this chapter was _not supposed to exist_ (but was also, I realized as I was working, extremely necessary). So, no Brewstest and Tallboy till next time. Instead, I offer you baby-faced university-era Edmund, which I hope is an acceptable trade.
> 
> Kykeon: not a tea, but a barley-and-water based concoction from Greek antiquity. Its other ingredients varied, sometimes including cheese, wine, and/or various herbs, and its purpose likewise varied from everyday beverage to a possibly psychoactive entheogen used in rituals.
> 
> Oh! And in case you missed it, [LOA Simcoe says hello.](http://calamity-bean.tumblr.com/post/153051617226/requested-by-tavsancuk-something-loa-inspired)

His first funeral was his father’s, and Edmund did not acquit himself well.

Daniel Hewlett’s heart, fierce and guarded though it was, gave out without warning in the autumn of Edmund's twenty-second year, while Daniel was walking home from the village and Edmund was hunched over a desk in Edinburgh, drowning himself in Homer as though the _Odyssey_ were a lotus he could choke on till he no longer cared how much he hurt. Four months since the accident. Four months since Edmund slammed into the hard earth of Dalkeith half a heartbeat ahead of his horse … Three months since his body rejected the tissue meant to rebuild his crushed toes … And one month since he returned to the University of Edinburgh—pale and gaunt and limping—to finish his final undergraduate year. He had not expected to see home again so soon.

 _Nearly there, son. And then it’s just law school, eh?_ Father had quipped as he saw Edmund off that final time. Gnarled hands adjusted Edmund’s necktie, which he could never seem to quite get straight. _See you at Christmas, lad_.

Instead, it was St. Martin’s Eve, and the sheep marked for slaughter bleated around the bonfires already piled in the fields. All morning, the ridges of farmland and spoil heaps that cradled the Hewlett estate had been bleeding fog.

 _His_ estate. The notion dizzied him. When they brought him home to recuperate after the accident, the first thing he’d noticed was how unsettling the air tasted here—how much like blood. Mother claimed it was his medication playing tricks on him. But from his bed, where he spent nearly a fortnight quivering with fever and grief, he could see the red spine of iron bings that ridged past the old mines. Three years in the heart of Edinburgh for uni, on the heels of five years of boarding school down south … Even in his deepest delirium, Edmund knew that the fault was not with the narcotics, but with himself.

He’d been too long gone from West Lothian. He no more recognized the taste of its blood than it did his.

The service was held in a drafty hilltop kirk that had watched over the surrounding moors since before the Reformation. Why did people always feel the need to build churches on _hills?_ Did they imagine God would better hear their orisons from ten meters closer to heaven? The climb had not made Edmund feel any more spiritual; it had only made his leg ache so fiercely that he’d had to stop for breath halfway up. He sank down against the lychgate to the cemetery and dug his fingers deep into the flesh of his calf.

 _Coming along nicely_ , the doctors said, smiling. _Your tibia’s fusing, and the amputations are all but healed. A patellar dislocation is agony, young man, but keep with the physical therapy, and you’ll be back in the saddle by spring_.

Not even Mother had asked whether he _wanted_ back in the saddle. No more than they had asked whether he’d yet applied to graduate school. The application was still sitting on his desk. If he didn’t file it by Monday, he’d have to take a gap year. Delay for twelve months his career and his income while the Hewlett fortune continued to sink deeper and deeper into debt. Mother and Father had been discussing selling off some of the land, before…

Slumped against the lychgate, Edmund fished a bottle from the pocket of his coat. Oxycodone made him feel as though the sky were a sea he was sinking through, but it got his leg up the hill.

Then the service. Unbearable. Interminable. Cold sweat on his forehead; nausea twisting his guts. Nothing but pills and bitter tea sloshing around inside. Struggling not to sway as they stood and sat and stood; Mother, slipping her hand into his, gripping his bicep to keep him steady even as she kept her lips pursed and her eyes fixed ahead. The top of her head scarcely reached his shoulder, but her spine had always been steel. He wished there were a pew he could hold onto. He wished he could curl up beneath it until everyone forgot he was there. His gaze kept swimming from the altar to the choir to the rose window up above, but _always_ , no matter how he tried to stop them, his eyes wandered back to the coffin and that blank, featureless face pillowed within—nothing more than a blur of white in his memory, a moon he wanted to blot from the sky.

The kirk was in the village, but Hewletts were buried on Hewlett land, in the private Hewlett graveyard, in the manner of Hewletts for centuries. A huddled march along a path carved through sheepfold and over stile so long ago that thistles still wouldn’t grow underfoot. He should have been at the fore of it, helping to shoulder the bier. Instead, he’d fallen to the back before they even reached the bridge.

“Let us send for the car, love,” whispered Mother when he began to flag, but Edmund forced a smile and assured her she needn’t wait. “Always at the coo’s tail, eh Eddie?” teased Ethan Lennox, who used to tear pages from Edmund’s sketchbook in grammar school, as he passed, and Edmund did not smile. He closed his eyes and shut his ears, narrowing all his awareness to the act of dragging one foot in front of the other, again, and again, and again.

A loose stone in the road, and he stumbled, catching himself on one of the low stone walls that had lined these pastures for centuries. It was only then he noticed how far he’d lagged. Up ahead, the mourners were fast vanishing into fog.

There was a custom, he recalled, that the old women of the village had once held to. On the night of St. Martin’s Eve, after the villagers had cut the throats of rams and let the blood spill over their thresholds, the local seer would sit in the lychgate or upon a stile and wait for a phantom funeral to go by. Fairies and pucks and black dogs parading … and there in the midst of them, the shades of every person in the village who would die in the coming year.

A silly superstition from less enlightened times. Yet if there _were_ such a thing, it would look, he was certain, like this: shadows whose edges bled like ink and water, seeping through the fog with no notice of the observer observer who sat watching them, whey-faced, clutching his knee.

A single shadow detached itself from the blur. The burbling of water in the burn lent its approach a soundless grace. Till it was nearly back to his side of the bridge, he thought it must be Mother, but no—too tall for that. And that hair, like summer wheat. At last, her face resolved, and familiarity clicked.

“Fancy a fag, love?” called Morna Beaton, a cigarette already between her lips. Her voice was softer than he remembered. They’d learned to ride together, from the time they were six—but she had been a raucous thing at six, and still had been when he went south at age fourteen. Now, she moved like the fog did, gliding, and her voice threaded up on that trail of smoke.

“I, ah … No. Thank you. I … don’t partake.”

“Care to start?”

The one she offered was stained with lipstick and saliva. He turned it down, uneasy, but accepted a fresh one and a light. He was still bent double, hacking his lungs out, as Morna took her place beside him on the wall.

“Sorry, these ones are shite, I know. Cannae find a decent menthol in this town for love or money.” Elbows on her knees, her pale eyes trailed over him. He could _feel_ them lingering on his leg. “Sorry ‘bout your da, too. And … about Bu. Your ma told me what happened at the Dalkeith trials. He was always a right sweet thing.”

“ _Perfect_ ,” Edmund whispered, staring down at his knees. If he let himself, he could still hear his horse’s bones snap. “He was perfect.”

“Yeah. Poor lad.” Again her eyes flicked to his leg, and he realized he’d been clenching and unclenching his hand on his knee. Face burning, he stopped. Why wouldn’t she just _leave_.

“It’s not a stone’s throw to my family’s barn, you know. I could fetch Penny and me brother’s new gelding, be back before you can blink.”

“I … No, no, I, ah. I wouldn’t want to … impose—”

“Lord, those toonser’s even got you talkin’ like you’re English, don’t they? Christ, but you’ve been gone too long.” Her smile sent a shiver through him, as did the brush of her fingertips along his jaw. Not a … _bad_ shiver, exactly … But the cold already had him wobbly, and the pills and his leg and—and he felt about as solid as the river trickling by. “When’s the last time we rode together? We dinnae even ‘ave to go to the buryin’ if you don’t like. There’s not a soul can hold it against you if you don’t. We can just ride out into the hills somewhere, to those shielings on t’ither side of the burn … Get to know each other again. C’mon, love. Let me cheer you up.”

A part of him wanted to say yes. Was entranced by the way her black hose pulled taut over her knees, the fabric so sheer he could see freckles on her skin. It would be so easy to surrender himself to her hands. Long, talented hands that had always been so clever on the reins; hands bearing calluses that matched his own. Despite how the Ethan Lennoxes of the world liked to tease him, he was not _entirely_ naive, thank you very much, and even he … Even he could parse the promise woven into that image of some ruined cottage on a hillside, pillowed in heather and thyme. But he could parse the pity in her eyes as well. And the thought of this _stranger_ , her voice no more familiar to him now than his was to her, being the first woman to touch him like that—not out of desire, even, but out of, out of _obligation_ , some sad sense of _duty_ … That nauseated him worse than the drugs.

“Thank you, Morna,” he murmured, and shut his eyes to those damnably functional knees. “I … believe I would prefer some time alone.”

Alone, Edmund sat. He watched the flat planes of the water slide past one another and let the cigarette burn down till it singed his fingers, startling him with how much time must have passed. They must be all the way to the cemetery by now. Mother would realize he was missing, would send the car back to pick him up … His stomach lurched, and groaning, he bent his forhead to his knees. Lord, that would be glorious, wouldn’t it, a fitting finale to months of hell: retching at his father’s graveside in front of some of the most successful men in Britain. _They will always look for reasons to doubt_ —

Edmund swallowed the bile burning his tongue. Then, with grit-teeth resolve, he dragged his leg over the wall and staggered into the field.

Each step was a separate hell. Stones stymied his footing and thistles tore at his socks as he trudged blindly up the slope, his head bowed; his foot, still unused to its missing toes, rolled on the uneven ground. He clutched his thigh harder and harder to distract himself from the way his knee clicked and throbbed. At first, the landscape seemed unfamiliar, all these anonymous sheep pastures and hills … but slowly, his memories mapped to the land. He closed his eyes and let his feet carry him into the dark.

And with nothing to hold his mind in place, it wandered far and frightfully, borne on a delirious current of pain and narcotics and _grief_ —that grief that had become a living part of him the moment Bucephalus tumbled over that jump. He carried it like a cord wound tight around his throat. For three months, it hadn’t let him breathe. Hadn’t let him sleep. He spent entire nights staring at his ceiling, leg throbbing, and wondered if he’d strangle before morn.

This was not _right_. None of this was right. Not these hills veined deep with superstition nor this house too vast for what dregs of the Hewlett legacy remained. Fathers were not supposed to die of heart attacks at fifty-three. Sons were not supposed to inherit debts and business deals and the upkeep of the ancestral estate before they’d even finished uni. There was supposed to be an, an order to the world, to the universe, to _life_ —an ineffable watch wound by some omnipotent hand long before humanity was conceived—and the calm, inexorable clicking of those infinite gears was supposed to make _sense_.

It was this place—it was these red slag-heap hills. The iron pulled the gears out of alignment and unsettled the wheeling of the stars. He _must_ return to Edinburgh, to New Town and its comforting Neoclassical grids. He must think of nothing but revising for his exams. Bury himself in Plato, and refuse to think of hose pulled tight over kneecaps when Catullus sang of pleasures Edmund had yet to know. Perhaps by the time he lifted his head again, this would all have proven but a dream: merely a stutter in the mechanism, set to rights by capable hands. His greatest worry would be his studies again, and he would come home at Christmas and tell Father how well he was getting on with Bu.

How could he have known, amid the flush of summer, what autumn would bring?

Breath rattling. Sweat drenching his collar, teeth bared, and he fumbled to tear his scarf free, let it flutter away on the wind. As he was climbing down a stile, his foot rolled, and Edmund fell reeling into the heather, his knee popping so loud the sound frightened him more than the pain. Eyes shut, his fingers curled in the grass. Earth and iron on his lips, that selfsame iron that had built the Hewlett fortune and that the old women in the village claimed guarded them from the things that lived in Cairnpapple Hill—and a terror gripped him, suddenly, that if he looked up, he’d see the shadows parading again, led by his father on a tall white horse.

And then nothing could stop him from remembering that day.

 

\---

 

A drama in two acts, falling—and Edmund could never seem to remember Act 1.

He remembered starting the course at an easy gallop, Bu’s gait as comfortable as an old glove. He’d raised the horse practically from a foal, after all. They had been awkward, gangly preteens together, he and Bu, and it was Edmund himself who had cajoled Bucephalus over those first six-inch cavaletti long ago. Now they sailed over a liverpool and thundered on a bending line toward the next jump, Edmund counting his strides in his head … _land, one, two, three_ … as the obstacle came into view. Massive. Tall and wide, like a dolmen tomb; his fingers tightened on the reins, pulling the leather taut against Bu’s neck, the horse holding his nose high as his breath puffed white in the clammy air. His forequarters frothed with sweat and grease. And they _had_ this, he and his sweet strong boy—they had tackled a thousand jumps like this—Bucephalus _never_ refused, he never tossed his head when Edmund hung too hard on the reins, he never bucked, never bit, and he would never let Edmund fall. He charged with head held high toward the jump for no damn reason in the world other than that Edmund had _asked_ him to. _Four, five, six_ , Bucephalus’s hindquarters bunching beneath him, and Edmund fought the maddening urge to close his eyes—

He remembered Bu stumbling, and then the crack of knees hitting hardwood. A sudden swoop of gravity in his stomach; an earth-shaking _thud_. But those were not the things that kept Edmund awake at night.

Nor was it the pain in his leg, though it throbbed like a heartbeat in his ears, or the shock of his kneecap wrenching out of place as his leg twisted in the stirrup on the way down, or the terrible blur of colors whirling around him, blue sky green earth white legs thrashing above him, a kick cracking the visor of his helm as one thousand pounds of sharp, flailing hooves slammed down on his leg and _rolled_. It wasn’t even the taste of blood and dirt, choking him, hacking red mud onto the ground before him and feeling it dribble down his chin.

No. The thing that Edmund would have eaten a thousand lotuses for the privilege of ever forgetting was the sound of Bucephalus _screaming_ so loud that it shattered something inside Edmund he knew would never heal.

Screaming as he scrambled up on broken legs; screaming, shrill and terrible, as he collapsed right back onto his forequarters, knees bent grotesque. Coach told him the crowd gasped then, just as they’d gasped at the fall. That much, Edmund did not remember. He was conscious of nothing other than the fire in his leg and the sound of his horse—his wonderful boy, the only friend who had stuck with him so long, the only possession besides his telescope that had travelled with him from home to boarding school to uni—the horse that had _trusted_ him to lead the way. Screaming as Edmund cradled Bu's head in his lap and sobbed. _Shhh_ , boy, Edmund whispered, hush, hush, he was going to be fine, he was perfect, he was brilliant, he was so, so good—he was such a good boy, and he was going to be _just fine_.

And then that hush, just before the end. When Bucephalus stopped screaming for just a few moments, his nostrils quivering with every hot, labored breath. Face drenched in tears, Edmund stroked that velvety nose and that broad, beautiful cheek.

And he promised, _It’s going to be all right_ , as the veterinarian slid the syringe into Bu’s neck.

After it was over, he pressed his forehead to his horse’s cheek and wept till the medics convinced him to let them look at his leg. Father had frowned when he heard that. _The dean of the law school was there_ , he’d said. Yes, Edmund had supposed, uneasy. Yes, he believed he was.

_And you cried like that in front of them all?_

 

\---

 

Edmund opened his eyes. Flowers on his lips and iron on his tongue, and the thought—unbidden, but alluring—that he could fall asleep there in the heather and vanish with the coming of the snow.

In Homer, the dead ate flowers. They ate milk and honey and barley water, such as the Eleusinians had mixed with pennyroyal and drank, delirious, at the height of their mysteries, their blown pupils reflecting like galaxies the faces of their dying-rebirthing gods … The dead drank wine, and they ate the asphodel that bloomed in the meadow where they roamed. But not till Odysseus cut the throats of lambs upon Erebus did the dead _rise_. When the mourners threw flowers atop Daniel Hewlett’s coffin before covering it with dirt, would that be the last taste on Father’s lips: lilies and pollen and gorse? Or were the shades of Scotland as bloodthirsty as the Greeks of old. Perhaps the iron in these hills was not the bones of the earth, as he had always thought, but the blood of centuries of his kin. The land so soaked with Hewletts that, if Edmund let it, it would not hesitate to swallow him whole.

Somehow, he limped the rest of the way to the estate.

There were lights in the house and shadows in the cemetery beyond the garden. He ignored them both. He dragged himself past his mother’s beehives and the vegetable garden. At last, he slumped against the heavy wooden door of the stable where he’d first learned to saddle a horse.

A rush of warm air. Sawdust and timothy and oiled leather, heady and sweet—and half a dozen gentle whickers of interest that twisted that broken place in his soul. The first stall held a dark, stout mare with lively eyes. Tinna, the pony he’d learned to jump with. He smoothed her mane and whispered reassurances against her cheek … Managed a chuckle when she lipped his jacket in search of treats. Then he pressed his face into her warm, velvety neck and released a first shuddering sob.

Not until he was certain the mourners had left did Edmund limp back to the house. It was dark by then, and Mother was sitting in her study with the lights off and a glass of Glenlivet in hand, staring at the wall. She took in at the thistles caught in his trouser leg and the hay caught in his hair, and the wide lips he’d inherited pursed at the sight of his reddened eyes. Edmund waited for the admonishment. _You worried me, you embarrassed me, in front of all our guests_.

It never came. She stood, pressed the whiskey into his hand, and told him to give his leg a rest, dear. She’d be right back.

 _It doesn’t have to be me. Heaven knows it can’t always be me, however much I wish I could always be there for you_. Mother wrapped a packet of frozen peas in a tea towel and pressed it gently against his knee. _But someday, Edmund. All I ask is that someday, you trust a person to carry you when life gets too heavy. Not a horse_.

He found himself thinking of that often these days. With Anna.

The poets sang of love as though it were a force powerful enough to ground the gears of the universe to a half. Certainly, _Edmund_ had felt the very stars tilt the moment Anna’s lips touched his. Unfortunately, it seemed the rest of the world had yet to receive this latest data. He always called to say goodnight, at least, but there were days they both were simply too busy or too tired to meet, and he missed her keenly those days: her laugh, her scent, her eyes.

That had never happened in his past courtships, such as they were. A shy, studious 2L he’d met in his final year of law school had been the first; then a colleague at his first firm, and later a history professor he’d met through a friend. Their schedules, like his, had been demanding, all of them young and ambitious in their careers, so they had found room for each other in what empty nooks and crannies of their lives remained and contented themselves with that. But with Anna, it felt more as though … As though he’d changed the mechanism entirely, filing new gears that interlocked with hers and shifted the rhythm of his entire existence. The first time he heard her singing in the shower during his morning routine, it was such a surreal moment that he had to pause in shaving and spend a moment simply taking in the reality of it. On one level, it seemed the most natural thing in the world—but on another, it was just one of a thousand mundane little ways in which his life was no longer entirely his own, nor Anna’s entirely hers.

How exhilarating, to feel the world shift like that. How awe-inspiring, to be allowed to taste her ribcage, to feel her giggles vibrate in her belly … To nuzzle into the soft, sweet-smelling warmth between her thighs and know that the catches in her breathing, the delicious twinges as she pulled on his scalp, were because of _him_.

For the most part, however, quotidian life marched on with all its usual demands. And Whitehall’s demands were worse than ever.

It would have been a sweet death to simply pillow his head on Anna’s breast and close his eyes to the world, but duty was a notion ground too deeply into his skin. He thought of his father’s hands every morning as he knotted his necktie and watched his expression in the mirror grow hard. Every day was its own battle now, and every victory pyrrhic. At the beginning, he had hoped to count on Richard’s assistance—for surely Richard would be as concerned as he was, once he’d listened to Edmund’s concerns? Surely he would be disturbed at any _hint_ of irregularity in Whitehall’s activities, whether the product of incompetence or intent, and do whatever he could to help Edmund ferret out the problem? But perhaps it was asking too much to suggest that there might be any defect within Richard’s pride and joy—the company he had built from nothing and which was to be his legacy just as much, or perhaps more so, as his son.

Perhaps … Perhaps if Edmund had broached the matter more delicately: made it clear from the beginning that, whatever was going on at Whitehall, he did not in _any_ way fault Richard for being unaware of it. Humans were so easily blinded to faults in the things they loved, after all. He supposed he could not blame Richard for not wanting to believe that anything could be amiss.

But _amiss_ something most certainly was, and Edmund may not yet have found the mechanism, but the _culprits_ , he knew. The truth of it was in that folder Abraham Woodhull brought to Anna’s the evening of the arboretum.

The folder itself was, ah. Was … as yet unretrieved from the cushion of Anna’s couch. Its existence weighed on him, but Anna seemed to prefer spending their evenings in his flat rather than her own, and what access he _had_ had to her sofa tended to arise in the course of … activities he did not feel inclined to disrupt. Suffice to say, he’d yet to find more than a moment unobserved. But even a glance at the papers had been enough to piece together this much: that the Culper Ring had infiltrated Whitehall—to what purpose, he daren’t guess—and that Abraham was somehow aware.

He could simply _tell_ Anna, he supposed. About the folder, about Whitehall, about Abraham. She might certainly be able to assist in confronting young Mr. Woodhull, which was a battle Edmund was finding difficult to strategize, for lack of sufficient data and history. There were nights he kissed constellations along the moles between Anna’s shoulder blades and felt an overpowering urge to tell her. But she wanted done with all that business, she’d said … And besides. Anna had battles of her own.

It was this damn _memorial_ —Selah Strong continuing to hurt Anna even from beyond his nonexistent grave. Soon, every Strong in New England would descend on Setauket for the man’s funeral, good riddance to him. Already, they’d been circling Anna for weeks. _Pecking_ at her with their incessant demands: _I want to read this, I want to sing that, no, don’t let Cousin Beth play that hymn, Selah hated that hymn, we want to sit in back, we want to sit in front, have it in the morning no have it at night, what do you mean they never found him, then how can you be certain it’s true, how can you be so quick to accept that our brother, cousin, nephew, friend, your husband, is dead?_

He wanted to scatter them all, the vultures, and build a cage of briars around Anna and himself no scavenger could pierce. The sight of her, always so strong, slumped wearily at the table with her face in her hands filled him with worry and ire.

The Reverend Tallmadge had proven invaluable, at least. A reserved but frank man, he took the reins in planning the memorial and treated Anna with a fatherly familiarity that reassured Edmund. And Edmund himself, of course, had assisted in any way she would let him.

Though that was not, initially, very much.

“You _realize_ you’re being irrational,” he huffed, setting aside two glasses of Côte de Nuits and pouring the rest of the bottle into the pan sizzling on his stove. Behind him, Anna’s knife was a steady _thnk, thnk_ on the cutting board as she readied the creminis to be braised. _Unwise_ , cooler heads might have cautioned, to call one’s lover irrational while she was wielding an eight-inch blade, but suffice to say that the conversation, like the coq au vin, had already been simmering some time.

Scowling in his apron and oven mitts, Edmund pushed the veg around in the pan. “Honestly, one would think you didn’t _trust_ me, Anna, or—or that you didn’t want me involved in your life—”

 _Thnk_. “I _don’t.”_

She should have spared the cutting board and simply stabbed him directly in the back, thought Edmund, his heart twinging. He turned in time to see Anna’s shoulders slump, to hear her sigh over the sizzling as, face half hidden from him, she raked back her tumbling hair.

“Not this part of my life. Not yet.”

Edmund worked his jaw, chewing his words carefully. The taut curve of her shoulder, the twisting of her hand in her sleeve as, in an increasingly familiar gesture, she bit her lip—closing in on herself again. She let him see her with phlegm on her nose and tears on her face … She let him see the way her jaw slackened and her eyes fluttered shut as, his chest tight with anticipation, he pushed inside her agonizingly slow … Yet still there were things—trivial things! Things she could not possibly imagine he would think less of her for!—that made her act as though … she wanted nothing to do with him at all.

“…It’s only _logical_ , though. Imagine I’m merely a … trusted friend, if that helps. Borrow from the bank, and you’ll have to contend with your credit rating, with interest at an exorbitant rate. I could … Is it such a terrible thing, that I want to help?”

“You _are_ helping. By—fixing me dinner. And complaining about my tea. _That’s_ what I need from you; not your money, not your pity—”

“I do _not_ —”

“I need you to be the _one thing_ in my life that feels _normal_ ,” she sighed, laying her hand over his heart.

When they watched the telly together, Anna liked to snuggle into his side and curl her fingers in the breast of his shirt. When he’d had a trying day at the office and couldn’t seem to stop snipping about it, she did the same, telling him firmly to calm. When they made love … Tongue hot and wet in her mouth; member hot and wet in her; her fingers tangled in his hair and his digging into the back of her thigh as they both whispered and whimpered and moaned, and what a fool he’d been, how histrionic, that mournful child on the moor, to think of dying there in the heather as though there were any better to place to die in than Anna Strong’s eyes and arms and heart … When they made love, it was with his heart hammering into her hand.

She would have made a fine horsewoman, his Anna. Hers were hands that could command with the gentlest touch.

“All that I’ve been through these past few years, Edmund. It’s like ghosts clinging to me, and I know I’ll never be rid of them, I’ve made my peace with that. But I don’t want them haunting _you_ as well.” A smile just strong enough to crinkle the corners of her eyes. The shadows beneath them had grown deeper these past few weeks. So had the shadows beneath his own, truth be told. “Is it such a terrible thing, that I want to keep you clean, and safe, and just for me?”

“But your past isn’t a _stain_ , Anna, it’s simply part of who you _are_. And I lo—”

Edmund faltered as her smile flickered with—with fear. She knew. She knew, and she didn’t want to hear it, not yet. A thousand times he’d fantasized about this moment. Many of those daydreams had involved clasping her hands between them, as he did now, and looking deeply into her eyes. In none of them had he been wearing paisley oven mitts, and in none of them had she looked so ill at ease.

“…I love you for who you are. _All_ that you are. Even the ghosts.”

Anna’s gaze dropped. For a moment, he feared he’d gone too far, and those walls would go up again and never come down. At last, she cleared her throat, and continued as though he’d not spoken at all.

“…Paying for dinner every now and then is one thing. Even helping with the legal stuff isn’t so bad. But _money_ , Edmund. _Real_ money. People will say I’m … using you.”

He had to laugh, that startled him so. “ _Using!_ Don’t be—Anna, no. No no no. I shall be the first to concede there will always be bullies in the world, but no one who’s been in your acquaintance for more than ten seconds could—”

“That’s what they said when I was with Abraham,” Anna snapped, and snatched her hands away. “Even though we’d been friends since we were kids. The Woodhulls were always _better_ than us, even before Dad and Richard’s fight, and after Dad’s business failed, you think anyone had much good to say about _Abe Woodhull_ dating some dropout who worked in a shop? Richard talked like I was just some grasping … like I was something Abe needed to scrape off his shoe.” When she pushed back her hair again, her were nostrils flaring as though she were a horse prepared to kick. A swallow, and she looked away. “…Tom and Susannah were always kind. But others still said I was just desperate for a man to take care of me, didn’t matter whether it was Selah or Abe. And neither of _them_ grew up on ancestral estates.”

“Well, they shall be comforted to know the ancestral estate spent most of my life all but _bankrupt_ , so—”

“That wouldn’t matter. Not to people like Richard or Mary. They don’t care whether something’s true or false or legal or not or whether it’s all rotten at the core—all they care is how it _looks_.”

“And _I_ don’t care what they think! Nor should you! And—and you do Mary too little credit. I told you, she _truly_ bears you no ill—”

Bitterly, Anna laughed.

The coq au vin was bubbling too much. Soon it would reduce down to nothing and scald. With a sigh, he turned down the heat and put the lid on.

“Besides.” Behind him, Anna’s voice was weary. “It’s not good, in a relationship, for one person to have anything … hanging over the other one’s head. Think how awkward it would be if we broke up.”

What was he meant to say to that? That it hurt to hear her even entertain the idea? That he couldn’t stand the way she constantly felt the need to qualify their relationship, to hem it in with _ifs_ and _maybes_ as though she didn’t dare count on its existence more than a week or so in advance? How could he tell her the truth: that this time next year, he hoped she’d be wearing his surname and his ring, and what would it matter then which of them owed the other what?

They’d write whole books about him. _How to Permanently Scare Off the Woman You Love: The Edmund Hewlett Technique_.

A touch to his shoulder, after a moment. Arms wrapped around his waist from behind, and Edmund let a breath out as Anna rested her head between his shoulder blades.

“Edmund, I … We’re both tired. Both overworked.” Even through his shirt, her breath was warm. With his mitt, he covered the hand that crept up over his heart. “I know you only mean to help. And I—appreciate that, truly. No one—Abe and Selah never noticed I needed anything unless I asked. The fact that you _do_ is one of the reasons I…”

Silence. Edmund held his breath.

“Let’s take a day just for us soon,” murmured Anna. He swallowed his disappointment. “Let’s get away from it all.”

 

\---

 

Two days after Mary Woodhull told him the story of The 723, Edmund and Anna rented a cheap little car for the day, packed themselves a basket of herbal cheese and barley bread, smoked sausages and wine, and followed a road chosen at random into the countryside till they were no longer certain where Setauket was, adrift as they were in an ocean of orchards and pastures and wheat.

Gold embroidered the land here, and purple, and greens of every shade; and after so long penned within the towers of the city, where only well-trimmed trees disrupted the gray, Edmund felt as though he were drowning in summer. The heat of the window against his forehead echoed the pressure in his head. For two days straight, he’d been battling a headache, and a niggling queasiness that twisted every time he thought of what he’d learned. The car’s motion and persistent odor of cigarettes did not help. But Anna looked so at peace in the sun. Lips keeping time with the radio, hands confident on the wheel as she drove. In the wind, in the sunlight, her hair whipped golden around her freckling face—a halo, an aura, a will-o’-the-wisp. He wondered why fairy lights were called fool’s fire. So lovely a beacon could surely lead even the wisest man astray.

That same breeze plastered her sundress to her thighs when they pulled over at a farmers market strung along the road. Compared to her easy beauty, he felt like a tatty farm boy himself in his fawn slacks and oxfords, sleeves rolled up around his elbows and suspenders pinching his shoulders, as he followed her from stand to stand. They bought strawberries, radishes, and pickled quail eggs to go with their lunch, and Anna’s eyes sparkled as she spoke with an old man selling honeycomb and beeswax soap. He was a merry, white-haired fellow, as unlike Edmund’s own father as these New England forests were to his moors, and Edmund, apparently, was the only one of the three of them disconcerted by the bees buzzing placidly all around the stall—but what did it matter how he flinched, for he might as well have not been there at all.

Anna asked what flowers his honey came from, what kind of boxes he used, how often he was stung, and the beekeeper could not have been more delighted to tell her of his bees, of his hives, of the son—right about your age, dear!—who’d been meant to take over the family farm but who had chosen to seek his fortune in the city instead, and how he visited home too seldom now, alas. Anna, in turn, told him about the teas she made from those same flowers and how she’d experimented with which type of honey best suited which blend, and she confessed, with such earnestness that Edmund felt even more out of place, that she’d always wanted to keep a hive.

“I looked at boxes for the rooftop, but it’s just too difficult in the city,” she lamented, the corners of her mouth twitching as she watched a bee walk over the back of her hand. “And my—husband felt the money could be better spent.”

Enraptured as she was by the insect, she did not, Edmund suspected, notice the way the farmer’s lively eyes flicked between his bare left hand and hers. But Edmund did make an effort to flinch less after that, even when a bee landed, deafening, on his ear.

When they left, it was with arms full of produce and honey, as well as directions to a brook a few fields away the beekeeper said would be a lovely spot for their picnic. It was also with his business card and an invitation to visit anytime. He would be happy to teach her to work the apiary, he said, and to pay her for her help—he was getting a bit old, after all, to handle the bees all by himself!

Anna’s eyes had lit up at that, or so Edmund thought—but her lips had pursed, and her tongue demurred. “Perhaps,” she said, a brittle sound too much like a no.

Yellow grass crunched beneath Anna’s boots and teased the hem of her skirt as they walked along the road’s shoulder, leaving the car behind. She still wore that smile, distant and sad.

“My mother kept hives,” he said abruptly. Anna glanced over her shoulder. “Well—still keeps, when she’s at home, though she’s tended to stay in Edinburgh since, ah, since my father passed. The heather—”

“It’s prized, right? Heather honey? Too expensive for the likes of me.” What a talent she had for keeping a smile affixed even when it didn’t reach her eyes. “I should have known the family fortune was built on something as sweet as you.”

The family fortune had been built on the backs of children who suffocated in mine collapses and of sailors who drowned, storm-tossed, while delivering that iron around the Empire. And once society no longer accepted such things as simply the cost of business, it had been lost to mismanagement and time. He wondered, if Anna ever visited West Lothian, whether she’d be able to smell the blood.

“…You should take Samuel up on his offer. Tending the bees made Mother so happy … You might—”

“Oh sure. I’ll just trot all the way out to Oyster Bay, in the car I don’t have, in all the free _time_ I don’t have. He didn’t even _mean_ it, you know, it was just … one of those things people say to be polite. Like when you run into an old schoolmate in the supermarket and you both say, oh yes, we should _absolutely_ do lunch.”

“Nonsense. Clearly, he means to use you to lure that prodigal son back home. Fortunately, I’m secure enough in my—doubtless manifold—charms to weather that risk. …Truly, though—”

“…It was never anything more than a daydream, Edmund. The sort of thing I had to grow out of, like being a knight or a secret agent. I mean—me as a _farmer_ , can you imagine? It sounds like something Abe would do to get out of having to go to school. Actually, it _is_ something Abe did to try to get out of having to go to school. Would you believe, he bought a bunch of cabbage plants while he was really high one day, and—”

“Abraham Woodhull lacks the maturity to commit himself to _anything_ for more than three consecutive seconds, unless the goal is to vex his father. Affinity for annoying Richard aside, _you_ are an entirely different animal in that regard. So yes, darling. You as a farmer, if that’s what would please you. With your beehives and your flowers and herbs.”

Anna fell quiet. Already, summer had begun lightening her hair and browning her skin, and her bare shoulders looked as though someone had stained them with fine-cut tea and left the silt to dry into freckles. There was a part of him—there always had been, he supposed—that wanted to dress her in lace and gemstones, the way she had been when they held each other’s hands for the very first time while lightning crackled all around. He didn’t _want_ her to be a farmer, per se. Why would he _want_ her to have to toil at anything when she could simply read and relax and let him take her to Paris and teach her piano and kiss her beneath the stars? He _wanted_ to take her to Richard’s dinner parties and prove to all the gossips and upjumped nouveau riche who had ever degraded her that she sparkled as bright as any heiress. Let them _dare_ look down their noses at her then.

It would not make up for all the injustices life had dealt her, but it might be a start.

But there was a deeper part of him, too. The part that had stirred not with anger but with fascination at the shock of cold coffee in his face. Hang the gemstones, it said, and hang the lace, and hang anyone who could not love her as she was now. Skin sweat-slick, hair wind-torn, trudging forward with all that hunger in her face.

“I do admire them,” she said eventually. “The bees. People derive such unflattering terms from them—we fill our dystopias with individuality-destroying ‘hive minds,’ we call menial workers ‘drones’ … But what’s wrong with working hard? Or devoting yourself to something bigger, if you’ve truly considered it and determined it’s the right thing to do? They don’t _hurt_ anyone, bees. They don’t destroy, they don’t exploit, they don’t steal resources or subjugate others to get what they want—they support themselves, yes, but they give back to the flowers in doing so, and so the entire ecosystem thrives. That’s … not a bad way to live, I think. Bettering your community. Hurting no one, unless provoked. And a sting is suicide, yes—but there’s something terribly romantic about that, isn’t there? To die for your home and your cause.” Anna gazed out over the fields, her jaw set hard. “I keep wondering what the point will have been, when I die.”

Aghast, Edmund opened his mouth. Shut it. What was he supposed to _say?_

Before he could think of anything useful, something in the distance caught her eye, and Anna turned to him with a smile that in no way suggested recent contemplation of death. “Speaking of other animals—”

He squinted, following the line of her hand. Then nearly dropped the hamper with a gasp.

“Oh my goodness. _Anna_. Anna, look at them, oh gracious, they’re _beautiful_ , look!”

Abandoning the hamper to the grass, he all but bounded to the next pasture, where a clump of horses were pulling hay from a bale. When he clicked his tongue at them, their heads lifted as one. They flicked their ears, they swished their tails … and, after a moment’s consideration, began to approach.

As they trotted nearer, Anna gasped.

“They’re so big!”

They … were of middling size, honestly? Three geldings and two mares, the smallest about fourteen hands high and the tallest not sixteen—all of them plump, coarse-maned warmbloods with coats clipped close for summer. Hopping up onto the bottom rail of the fence, he cautiously offered a hand to the nearest gelding and grinned to think how Anna would have gasped at the sight of Bu.

“Never seen a horse before, love?”

“I’ve _seen_ them, thanks. The Tallmadges had a dapple gray when we were kids. Ben and Sam used to take turns holding the reins while I … It’s just … been a while.”

Velvety, whiskery noses whuffling on his hands; curious lips plucking at his sleeve. He let a bay mare rub an itch against his hand and chortled, almost falling off the fence, when a little roan stuck his head through and nudged him in the side. Oh yes, these were lovelies, these ones; not skittish farm horses, but practically pets. The residents of a riding school, no doubt, used to receiving sugar cubes and kisses from adoring young girls. They made an appreciate audience for the flowering lucerne he plucked from his side of the fence.

So delighted was he that, for a moment or so, all he had eyes for were the ponies, and all he could do was grin till his face hurt, lest this giddiness in his chest bubble over and explode. How long had it been since he’d felt those sweet soft nuzzles, seen the sparkle in those huge dark eyes? For a moment, he … forgot, almost, why he hadn’t ridden in so long.

In the corner of his eye, Anna lingered well back. Scratching a gelding’s ears, he smiled at her. “Won’t you say hello?”

“I … enjoy keeping all my fingers intact, actually.”

“Oh, these ones are sweethearts, _lambs_ , really, they shan’t bite—here, allow me…”

Sometimes he forgot how many people these days never so much as touched a horse in their entire lives. So, as he cajoled her onto the fence beside him and wrapped his arm around her waist, he handled her as though she were a horse herself, striving to be subtle but confident, easy but firm. He pointed out how relaxed the horses were, their ears forward and tails swishing at flies … Confided that horses were just big, skittish dogs, really, which made her smirk. And they were powerful creatures, yes, but the key—as in all friendships—was simply communication, and understanding, and trust.

“As you trust me, correct? So we’ll simply lay our hand flat, and—don’t curl your fingers, love, that’s it—and then…”

When a piebald mare lipped the first handful of lucerne from Anna’s palm, his hand was cupping hers, and his eyes were on her face. The parting of her lips was more sublime than any sunrise.

“See?” he murmured as she stroked the piebald’s nose. “As though I would ever let you come to harm.”

Dark eyes flicked to his. Anna’s fingers slid beneath one suspender and curled.

“And do you trust _me?”_

He glanced at her hand. A strong hand, chafed and clever and beautiful. Resting over his heart. Anna bit her lip against a grin when he nodded, then hooked one of her arms around the rail and took hold of his other suspender. Forcing himself to match her smile, he leaned back just a little, feeling the straps stretch across his shoulder blades as they took his weight. Nerves niggled his belly. But Anna had him. So he closed his eyes, and let go of the fence—

 

\---

 

“So. Will I get to meet this one?” Mother had teased, and he could hear her smile over the phone. It was not the first question she’d asked. _What’s her name?_ preceded it, and _How did you meet?_ came after that—he hedged a bit in that answer. Both of those had followed on the heels of several queries ascertaining that when he said he was “seeing someone,” he did, in fact, mean _romantically_ , not that he’d started going to therapy or something. Mother always strove to be reserved, but he knew that lilt in her voice. She was as eager to hear about Anna as he was to tell.

“I hope so. I was thinking of inviting her along for Christmas, perhaps…?”

“There’s a lad. But don’t you make me wait till winter for _all_ of it. Go on. What’s she like?”

Edmund had found himself grappling with his words at that. So many adjectives to choose from, so many poetic allusions to invoke…

“Do you recall, when I was very young, how I used to close my eyes over jumps?”

“…I so hated when you did that.”

“I know. But … It wasn’t because I was afraid.”

Mother had been silent a long time.

 

\---

 

—and Edmund did not fall.

Not right away.

One moment, his suspenders were pulled taut across his shoulders, his hands clasped atop Anna’s on the straps. But then there was a huff, and a yelp, and suddenly he was thudding into the ground, Anna knocking the wind from his chest.

“You dropped me!”

“No, I—!” Anna spat grass from her mouth. It waved all around them in tall emerald flags, the barley scratchy against his arms, the clover soft beneath his back. Anna’s hair bristled with the stuff as huffing, she hurled an accusing finger toward the ponies peering innocently over the fence. “One of them _blew_ on me!”

All he could do was laugh.

“It blew right into my _ear_ , all right? _Wetly_. And I didn’t _drop_ you, you’ll notice. I _fell_.” His laughter died as, shutting her eyes, Anna lay her head against his heart. “I just … took you down with me, is all.”

“…I should rather neither of us go down at all.”

“In a perfect world. But there’s something terribly romantic about it, isn’t there. Falling on the same sword.”

Later, he rolled up his trouser legs and slung his suspenders down, and they cooled their feet in the sandy brook as they drank wine straight from the bottle and fed each other berries and cheese. Anna started a war by dabbing honey on his nose, and Edmund finished it, by God, with her squirming and cackling in the grass beneath him, sucking nectar from the hollow between her breasts. Then she lay her head in his lap, and he threaded his fingers through her hair as she talked.

She briefed him on her friends—“the boys,” she called them—he’d be meeting soon, when they came for Selah’s final farewell. Not that he could possibly have forgotten Mr. Brewster, and though he had not _met_ Major Tallmadge per se, he still frowned to remember that tall, handsome young man who had looked so … _worthy_ at Anna’s side. But Reverend Tallmadge seemed a decent man, and Anna assured him he would like Benjamin as well. “Classic preacher’s kid—the sheltered, prudish kind, not the ones that go totally crazy and rebel. But he really cares. About faith, and honor, and duty. You’ll get along.”

Yet it was Brewster, she claimed, whom _she_ trusted more with her secrets and her heart. He didn’t judge, she said. And for all his irreverence, he knew when to be sincere.

“I’ve been thinking about quitting the shop,” she admitted, some time after the wine had run dry and the sun had sunk toward the west. Anna braided her sorrow so tightly with her rage that Edmund often couldn’t tell which was which. Right now, her voice sounded hard, even belligerent, but there was a thickness to it that made him wish he could see her eyes. “I keep thinking—about Selah, and how he’s going to have a gravestone but no coffin, not even ashes, just a plot of unbroken land. What’s left of him? Everything he built is gone. He left it in my hands, and I _lost_ it. Just another small business that barely made it five years. And I—I _had_ dreams, Edmund. Maybe they were silly, but they were _mine_. But there was always something more important, wasn’t there? I had to help Selah run the shop, or support Abe against his father, or drop out of school because Dad’s business was failing and we needed the money too much. By the time I looked up, everyone had left me behind.

“Ben’s devoted his life to this country. He’s given it his brother and his blood. When he—God, I fear for him—when he dies, they’ll bury him with a flag and a three-volley salute, and the whole town will mourn, but we’ll never doubt that his life meant something. Abigial would do anything for Cicero, and even with how busy she is, she still finds time to do online courses so she can finally get her degree. Caleb—no one who has ever met Caleb is going to forget Caleb. That’s just who he is. He makes people laugh everywhere he goes, and two hundred years from now, I bet sailors all over the world will be swapping legends about him. And you, Edmund. Even if you weren’t successful in your own right, you’d still be part of a legacy. What about me? What have I done with my life? Is anyone going to remember I existed at all? I don’t even have family left to bury me. I have no degree, no business, no direction—I have left no trace on the world except on the tablecloths where I spilled _tea_. They’ll wash me out of history. Just like Setauket’s been trying to wash me out for years.”

Her hand curled in his shirt. “I want to _do_ something with my life, Edmund. I want to know it was worth the cost.”

“You are _inherently_ worthy,” he insisted, but Anna only chuckled, pressing her face into his belly. Wetly, she sniffed. Edmund thought of what his father had said after Bucephalus died.

_It’s not that I don’t want you to feel. Promise me, Edmund, that you’ll never become one of those men who don’t feel._

After admitting how he’d cried in front of all those spectators at Dalkeith, Edmund had hid in the library, his face blotchy and his crutch leaning against this chair … but Father found him before long. He remembered scowling into the fire and refusing to meet Father’s gaze.

_Weep with joy at your wedding. Weep when you read a poem that moves you or hear an aria that speaks to your soul. Weep when your children are born. No one with a trace of decency in them can think less of you for that. But for good or ill, you were born to a certain station, Edmund, and like the profession you are entering, it carries certain expectations. The people in our spheres will always look for reasons to doubt you. They will read sadness as weakness, and even the ones who sympathize at first will come to resent you for it. If you want to win their hearts and minds, you will not ask them to carry your troubles atop their own._

So, yes. He could tell Anna about Whitehall.

He could tell her how he spent his days in paranoia now, wondering which of his coworkers were spies. Churlish Easton? Bumbling Baker? The men and women who sat beside him in leadership team meetings, congratulating themselves and each other with hearty laughter he could no longer bring himself to join in? Or the obvious choice, yet the one who, for Mary’s sake, he hoped most of all was innocent: Abraham, who seemed to be accomplishing little during his summer associateship other than chit-chatting with everyone other than his wife?

In the end, the only one whose loyalty he trusted was Mrs. Woodhull herself. He could tell Anna what Mary had discovered. He could admit he’d stayed late the previous night not to meet a deadline but because he’d been waiting for Richard to leave. Then he’d spent half an hour digging through the mountain of boxes in the old storage room till he found paperwork pertaining to The 723. He’d pursed his lips when he compared the papers in storage to the PDFs on the server and found that the fine print differed _ever_ so slightly between the two. And his stomach had twisted as he realized that the terms of the contract seemed … so familiar, really. The grounds for eviction so similar. To a case he’d signed off on only months before.

He could tell her how sick he’d been over it ever since—but what would be the point?

Anna was a woman of competent hands, and she’d try to carry his whole world for him if he let her. How he admired her compassion, but there was a restless edge to it, a _need_ to tackle things with her own two hands, no matter how much she was already struggling to hold. A few more weeks, and the memorial would be done with; this business at Whitehall would be done with; he’d have received the phone call he was dreading, figured out how best to play his hand, and could wash his hands and Anna’s of the business once and for all. Why trouble her now?

 _Damned_ if he would be the sword she fell on when he could bear her on his shield instead.

“It might be nice, you know,” she mumbled against his shirt. “To live in a place like this someday. Away from the city lights.”

“Reconsidering Samuel’s offer?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Someday, once all this is over with … I’ve been fighting so long, I can’t remember anything else, and I’ve lost every battle I fought. But lately, I can’t shake the feeling that, one way or another, the war will be over very soon. And when it is … How can I stay in Setauket and pretend nothing's changed? But … someplace like this might be nice. You know? There’d be space to keep hives and a garden, and … a couple of horses, maybe, too. And not too much light to see the stars.”

Never before had she spoken of the future as though it were a shared thing with space for them both. The vague image of a year from now, previously defined only by a ring on her hand, began to resolve.

Rings, yes. For them both. And a summer bleaker than New England’s, but all the more beautiful for it. As mist sparkled on the moor, she would clip her herb garden and tend bees in Mother’s old hives, and when they wanted to forget the rest of the world, they would ride out together into the hills somewhere, just she and he. He imagined her hair furled out like a wine spill over heather and yellow gorse, and he imagined licking honey from her pulse.

(He would no longer wonder, in the coming months, why those lights that danced on the moor were called fool’s fire. A year from now, his left hand would be as bare as ever, and he would know too well how it felt to be led astray. But how could he have known, amid the flush of summer, what autumn would bring?)

Edmund smiled.

“It’s going to be all right,” he promised, and tenderly stroked her cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I fear this chapter is kind of a mess, but I hope it made sense, and I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts. I actually have so much to say about this chapter that it can't all fit here in the notes. I'm putting the most essential info here, but for more information on the folkloric material (fairy funerals, Cairnpapple Hill, etc.) alluded to, [I've got you covered on Tumblr.](http://calamity-bean.tumblr.com/post/153521408040/loa-21-extended-notes-fairies-funerals-the)
> 
> Show quotes: "He was perfect"; “winning their hearts and minds”; and “I love you for who you are and all that you are.” :'(
> 
> Daniel Hewlett was the name of the historical Lt. Col. Richard Hewlett’s father. (Mama Hewlett was Sarah.) As for Selah’s parents … Some sites say they were Thomas S. Strong and Susannah. Some say they were Selah and Hannah. I have _no idea_ which is correct. Feel free to let me know. I went with the former combo because I didn’t want another Selah in the story, though we’re up to three Thomases now, so there’s really no winning, I guess.
> 
> Some vocab words: "Always at the coo's (cow's) tail" is a fancy way of calling someone a slowpoke. A shieling is a makeshift shepherd’s hut way up in the wild parts of the pastureland, and a burn is a small river or brook. This is the sense of the word from which the English surnames Bourne and Burns derive. Burn could also be used as a first name, I guess, but who would do _that._
> 
> Last but not least, a loving shout-out to Tinna, one of the best damn horses I ever knew. She hailed from Iceland and almost got made into stew because she wouldn’t tolt. Fortunately, my trainer bought her instead. ❤
> 
> Non-US readers, I hope you all have a good Thursday; US readers, I hope you all have a good Thanksgiving. It's a day I dread, personally. It often makes me feel tired and sad. But I celebrated with friends over the weekend, friends I don't see nearly often enough, and there was comfort in that. So even if, like me, you don't look forward to Thanksgiving itself, I hope you find some time soon to spend with the people who make you feel whole.


	22. Light Dragoon Punch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the eve of Selah's memorial service, old friends reunite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everybody! I hope 2017 is treating you well so far. Mine got off to [a rough start](http://calamity-bean.tumblr.com/post/155395028370/oh-dang-its-2017), but one thing that really brightened my day recently was LOA getting its 500th comment! (At the time, the first in the Turn tag to do so, though I wouldn't be surprised if it's already been surpassed.) As I said [on Tumblr](http://calamity-bean.tumblr.com/post/155679271066/thank-you-for-500-comments-on-law-order), the reason that means so much to me is that without the readers I met through this fic, I wouldn't have had the pleasure of getting to know so many other Turn fans on AO3, on Tumblr, and on Twitter. Not to mention that I wouldn't have kept up with this writing project for so long, which is a meaningful personal accomplishment for me. Thank you all for reading and for sharing so much insight and enthusiasm with me — about LOA, about Turn, and more!
> 
> Charleston Light Dragoon's Punch is a classic concoction dating back to the late 18th century and consisting of black tea, brandy, rum, peach brandy, lemon juice, and raw sugar. Owing to the Tallmadgey _perfection_ of its name, I have been waiting for a chance to use it as a chapter title for a solid _year_ and, indeed, still want to someday use it for the title of the Tallster LOA-verse mini-fic I have been meaning to write for ... almost a solid year.

“You’re drowning, Tallmadge. Breathe.”

China rattles in his hands. Rattles at the ends of his fingertips, nails on porcelain, a shiver of glass on glass, and yes: yes, there is water in his lungs. So hot and bitter on his tongue that his sinuses throb with it and moisture beads on his lips—and the water must be why, though his ribs shudder in and out, he cannot seem to draw air. Somewhere beyond the veil of steam that coats his throat, voices protest, apologies are murmured, a bell chimes; with finality, the clicking of a door.

Then a hand on his shoulder, sudden and steady as the voice that says: “ _Drink_. Believe it or not, it really does help.”

 _If Caleb were here_ , Ben thinks. If Caleb were here—not _here_ , exactly, among mirrors and quaint café décor and the scent of flowers and grass, but _here_ , in America, in any place Ben could plot on a map or reach his hand—then Ben would not be. He would drop his forehead onto a shoulder clad in leather that smells of cigarettes and sea spray, and he would breathe in that familiar scent as Caleb sighed and ruffled his hair.

But just before Ben shipped out for his latest deployment, Caleb had bummed a last-minute ride to the airport, grabbed him by the ears outside security, and planted a smacking kiss on his mouth that made Ben flush scarlet in front of half of LaGuardia. _Catch ya at Christmas, Benny boy_ , he’d cackled as Ben shoved him away, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. (Someday, maybe, he’ll think harder on how little he minded that scrape of stubble, or how he hadn’t tasted nearly as bad as stale nicotine should—but not today.) _I’ll send you a postcard from Greenland, yeah?_

No postcard ever came, of course. And Christmas is still months away. By then, he suspects it'll be too late. Grief is a sliver of shrapnel burrowing toward his heart, as though he’d been caught in the halo of a mortar blast and awoken with souvenirs no surgeon could cut out. And Ben is a dead man walking, just waiting for the day one of those needles finishes the job.

So the general gives him leave: two weeks home, for the funeral and to get his head on straight again. Dad gives him sermons and homilies, seeking solace from chapter and verse. Sam phones from school, but can’t give him much more than crackling silence on the end of the line, full of things too heavy for a boy his age to say. Home feels more like a coffin every day, and Ben wakes in the night, shuddering, blinking away echoes of _Damon! Hurry up! After all, we have but one—_

But when he goes in search of one of the few friends he has left, it isn’t Anna he finds in the shop.

“I won’t give you the usual lines about antioxidants, cleansing your toxins, et cetera, et cetera. Customers love that sort of thing, but it’s mostly … Well, one says what one must, to make a living. It _will_ make you feel better, though. At the very least, it’ll warm you up.”

The hand leaves his shoulder; the screech of chair legs across the floor. In the gauzy borders of his vision: dark hair, a square jaw, long legs lowering him into the chair. And when he speaks again, Selah Strong’s voice is as blunt and direct as ever.

“Is this the first of your friends to die?”

No. And yes. Ben chuckles wetly into his tea. “I’m in the _army_ , Strong. People die all the time.”

Silence. Selah isn’t staring at him, not quite; face at three quarters, hair falling over one of his eyes … but his gaze has a way of glancing off Ben’s edges that pierces him all the same.

Ben looks away. “…The first who was this close.”

Solemnly, Anna’s husband—so newly wed that their rings still surprise Ben—nods. _Solemn_ had been Ben’s first impression of the man, when they met years ago. _Angry_ had been the second. In the Caucasus, they’d crossed rivers in late summer that smoothed in placid planes over the sand, and returned to those same rivers the next spring to find valleys engorged with white water churning and roiling over the rocks. Never had Ben resonated with a landform so strongly. Nor had he ever known anyone he thought might understand why till he met Selah.

“I _cared_ about the others,” he insists. In his chest, he can feel the knot of words loosening, though he’s not sure why; in his palms, the teacup glows hot. “They were my men. My brothers in arms. I would’ve given my life for any of them. But Nathan was … I keep thinking of the class we met in. Intro to Ancient Philosophy, at Yale. We were freshman, and it was just a gen ed requirement for me, but Nate had it for his major, and he was so—damn— _pretentious_ , I could hardly—”

His throat spasms; he breathes deep of the bitter steam.

“…He used to call me Damon,” he finishes awkwardly, no longer certain why that matters or why his chest was nearly bursting with the urge to share it. “Damon and Pythias, that was us. After the Greek legend. Best of friends. So close they would’ve died for each other. Pythias was charged with treason by the tyrant of Syracuse, and sentenced to death … Only, the tyrant was so moved by his and Damon’s friendship that his execution was stayed and they both went free. In the legend, at least.” It’s minutes, maybe, before he realizes he’s been staring at his hands. “…They _filmed_ it, Selah. Nathan on his knees. With a black hood over his head.”

“God—you didn’t—”

“No. No, of course not. Our people managed to—we got it taken down before I even knew. But Washington told me the bastards posted it. And I’ve seen enough leaked executions to fill in the blanks.”

No sooner have the words left his lips than the absurdity of them punches Ben right in the gut, leaving him gasping with the bizarre and irrepressible urge to laugh. This is his life now. This is the life he’s trained for and sworn himself into. Scouring the dark web for coded messages from terror cells; poring over grainy, 240p videos of journalists and aid workers staring wide-eyed into the camera as though he can help him from his side of the screen. The life of a rookie intelligence officer, too young to know so much.

The shrapnel gnaws, gnaws, gnaws, and Ben squeezes his eyes shut.

“…What the hell am I gonna tell his parents.”

“ _Nothing_ ,” snaps Selah, so uncharacteristically sharp that Ben looks up. Something dark and bitter burns in Selah’s eyes: a ripple in the water, a glimpse of springtime and snowmelt and storms. “You say nothing, because his parents do not want you to speak of his death. They want his life. What’s left of it, wherever they can find it—in the texts he sent, the things in his bedroom, the memories in his friend’s heads. So tell them about Intro to Ancient Philosophy. Tell them about pranks he played on professors and how he made an ass of himself in front of girls. How you met, the first time you got wasted together, the last time you hung out. Tell them about Damon and Pythias—but not how the legend ends. That video—and whatever it may or may not have shown—are _yours_ to carry. Not theirs.”

Hooking Ben’s cup by the handle and drawing it aside, Selah took a long, lingering sip of tea.

“And remember, Tallmadge. When attending a service for a close friend, there are three things you need to do.”

 

\---

 

With the shudder of the train stuttering to a halt, Ben’s eyes snapped open—to Setauket, and a white needle piercing the sky.

It stabbed straight through the center axis of his vision as though it had been waiting for him; as though, all the way back in Connecticut, when he settled in against the smog-streaked window of the train and fell asleep, he’d somehow known precisely how to angle his head such that that needle would be the first thing he saw when he awoke. From this distance, it seemed hardly more than a thread on the horizon. The faintest line against the clouds. Yet it was enough to twist in his heart.

That was the first thing Ben saw as the train pulled in to his long-neglected home.

The second was a spark of leather and flannel, standing still and sturdy in a wide-legged stance even as the rest of the crowd on the platform flowed around.

“Asshole,” muttered Caleb into his shoulder, squeezing Ben so hard his ribs creaked. “You’re late.”

“Dick. Take it up with the Connecticut Transit Authority. We sat in New Haven for forty-five minutes because the driver was too hungover to work.”

“No excuses, man, I was at the mercies of goddamn Greyhound and still got here on schedule. Met some interestin’ folks, too. Guy next to me sure was happy to show off his knife collection, I tell ya what.”

Caleb looked good. Which was to say, Caleb looked like a Washington hipster who’d had a run-in with Bigfoot on his way there; or maybe he _was_ , himself, Bigfoot, and had taken the jeans and flannel off some cryptid hunter unlucky enough to be proven right. His beard was solid again, a leaf tangled in his hair, and his boots were splashed with mud that didn’t match any color of soil Ben had ever seen on Long Island. He looked so goddamn glorious and powerful in all the ways _Ben_ used to feel, before he started feeling so exhausted all the time, and Ben envied him that even as he reeled Caleb in for another, even tighter hug.

Leather, salt spray, warmth. Ben breathed deep.

“And to think,” came the voice against his shoulder, muffled and sly. “Instead of Knife Guy, I could have had a nice sweet soldier boy’s shoulder to drool on, if you hadn’t run off to goddamn Connecticut on me, ya traitorous—”

Suddenly, the hug turned into a headlock, and then commuters were scattering like pigeons as the two of them stumbled across the platform, shoving and tussling and throwing elbows that were good-natured if still pretty damn sharp. Somewhere between tripping over his own duffle bag and stumble-tackling Caleb onto a bench, he found himself laughing aloud, feeling so alive that he almost forgot about the needle in the sky.

The wrestling was as comfortable and well-worn as Caleb’s leather jacket, as was the argument. Every time Caleb happened to wander back stateside at the same time Ben went on leave, they went through the same routine. The thrill of reunion! Warm laughter and cold beer and the way just being near Caleb eased the tension from Ben’s shoulders, soul-deep. _Just stay at my place, Benny boy, what you wanna waste money on a hotel for? C’mon, I gotta fridge full of beer and a couch with your name on it. PROMISE this one’s not full of baby rats._

And for the first couple weeks, everything went great.

But Ben could only survive on Sam Adams and cheap Italian takeout so long before his insides started to feel like an oil slick, and Caleb’s stove had an alarming tendency to burn water, and there were no rats this time, true—well, no more than anywhere else in Boston—but the cramped, cluttered apartment smelled persistently of mold no matter how often Ben cleaned, and he found himself passing too many days perched on the fire escape with a book in one hand and a bottle in the other and a persistent emptiness eating away at his stomach as he watched the narrow, red-brick streets of the North End throng with an endless queue of tourists in and out of Mike’s and with locals parading in honor of saints whose names he didn’t know. So, after about a month, Ben had repacked his duffle bag and taken the Amtrak to Coventry, a quaint Connecticut town where cottages overlooked a picture-book lake and nothing ever smelled of smog or urine or mold.

The Hales had a couch, too—much cleaner than Caleb’s—and a hole in their lives they’d spent the last three years trying to fill by practically adopting any of Nate’s friends who would let them. So Liz had offered him Enoch’s old room, and Rich had offered him a job in the woodshop so he could earn his keep … And though it meant walking every morning past a stubbornly closed door still decked with Yale pennants and signs handwritten in Greek … Ben had stayed.

He had not stopped in Setauket on his way south. He had not visited Setauket at all since he returned stateside, in fact, except for that one night at the museum, what felt like a lifetime ago.

(Well, it _had_ been a lifetime, hadn’t it? Long enough for Selah Strong to have been alive then and dead now, so—)

The laughter died in his chest. Sprawled over Caleb’s lap, his gaze flicked to the horizon again.

“C’mon, away with you. Wouldn’t wanna scandalize the fine folks of the town.” Caleb shoved him off without ceremony, then gave his shin a kick to get his attention. “So! Annie said she’s off work in like half an hour, then I was thinkin’ the three of us should spend the eve giving our man Selah a _proper_ send-off, y’know? Tell some tales, laugh some laughs, lots of booze, lots of brotherhood, maybe some bloodshed—Selah woulda wanted that, bless his wee belligerent heart … before the Strongs get here for the funeral tomorrow and start collectively scowlin’ at anyone who don’t look sufficiently miserable. Never did understand how Selah got so good at scowling till I met the whole clan.”

Ben nodded, but absently. Even as he shouldered his duffle and started down the platform, his eyes kept trailing to the big bay windows overhead. At his side, Caleb nudged an elbow in.

“ _So_ , you wanna head to the shop and get a start on terrorizin’ our girl, or…?”

The thought of the tea shop made his stomach twist with the memory of drowning. “Text me the bar. I’ll meet you guys there. Just—got a stop to make first.”

By the narrowing of his quick dark eyes, Ben knew he wasn’t fooling anybody, but Caleb didn’t argue. Just slung a gentle punch into Ben’s shoulder and told him to try not to miss him too much. Then he headed one way down the sidewalk, and Ben headed the other. He lifted his eyes to the horizon and let the spire of First Presbyterian Church guide him home.

There were bigger churches on Long Island. There were statelier churches on Long Island, ones made of stained glass and stone rather than whitewashed shiplap siding with grey shingles for a roof. But First Presbyterian _loomed_. It thrust its spire up from the highest hill in town as though trying to thread a direct line between Earth and God.

If Ben had been more like Nathan, obnoxiously erudite, or Sam, who’d gone to seminary before following Ben into the army, he probably would’ve appreciated the symbolism in that location—closer to heaven, a shining city on a hill, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe the colonists had even intended that when they’d built it. But for Ben, the church’s prominence had always been far more than an intellectual exercise. It was an inescapable reminder that his father and _the_ Father alike were watching, no matter where he walked.

There was comfort in that. Home. Safety. Middle-school memories of napping on the hard pews as his father rehearsed the week’s sermon to an empty church. But there was also dread.

For if God was watching where he walked, then God knew exactly how far he’d strayed.

In this case, only as far as around the corner, to the flower seller who’d been working the same corner since Ben was a kid. He bought a handful of sunflowers with heads as big as his own before letting himself into the churchyard by the gate at the bottom of the hill.

Never had he understood why people were afraid of graveyards. The sun dappled through sprawling elms; it glittered on the newer headstones near the foot of the hill and pooled shadows into the deep, well-worn hollows off the main path, where the stones had burrowed so deep into the earth that only their crowns remained, pushing up out of the soil with faces stained tea-brown by age and eaten smooth by moss. Every now and then, he found a long-lost Tallmadge down there, or a Brewster or a Woodhull or a Strong. But most of the names were long since worn away and forgotten. As kids, they’d spent whole weekends exploring the place, marveling whenever they found a new stone hidden under ivy or one on which they could still make out a year beginning _1-6_ —and in the summers, after swimming in the millpond, they’d lain shoulder to shoulder with each other and with the dead, him and Sam: two blond boys baking in the sunlight at the top of the hill.

And it was there, at the top of the hill where the sun shone brightest, that Ben knelt now.

“Hey, kiddo. Sorry it’s been so long.”

The little American flag planted next to Sam’s headstone was crooked. Ben straightened it, then arranged the sunflowers with care, absentmindedly smoothing the grass over the grave. Somewhere nearby, he smelled cigarette smoke— _strictly_ forbidden, for the sake of preserving the old markers. As the reverend’s son, it was probably his duty to do something about that. But Sam came first.

“Has Dad told you yet, you’re getting a new neighbor tomorrow? Well, sort of. I reckon the stone’s already planted, at least. Even without his body here, maybe that’ll be enough to get his ghost or spirit or whatever to hang around. I’ll feel a little better knowing you’ve got each other for company. You can show him the ropes, you know?”

His legs, cramped from the long ride, ached as he sat all the way back, grass tickling his neck, and stared numbly up at the sky. “Sammy, I can’t believe he’s gone.”

 _Really_ gone. Not _missing_. Not, _He left, and that was shitty of him, but someday he’ll come home and explain everything and make it up to Anna and we won’t have to worry anymore_ —really, truly _gone_. Even saying he couldn’t believe it felt empty; a shitty cliché. But it was true. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d stood at a service for someone who’d been a brother to him; it wouldn’t even be the first time he’d stood at one with neither coffin nor ashes to commit to the ground, only a stranger’s unproven assurance that someone he loved was dead.

Not like Sam’s funeral. Nothing like Sam’s. The memory of that day, of that _month_ , was still something Ben had to set his jaw to even think about, but at least the boys in Sam’s squadron had brought him home. They’d held his hand till he was gone and had sworn that Sam never cried; never despaired; never cursed God for what was happening to him—just prayed right to the end. And at the funeral, Ben had been able to smooth that rebellious gold hair back from his little brother’s forehead one last time, before they lowered him into the ground with a three-volley bloom of gunsmoke as Mom clutched the flag to her chest and the church spire looked on.

As hard as that had been, at least he had the memory of hair beneath his fingers every time the denial stage tried to make him forget that it was real. But with Selah … with Nate … When there was no way he could give his stupid, stubborn brain any kind of _proof_ … For all that he was a preacher’s son, Ben had never been particularly good at taking things on faith.

“I’m so tired,” he confessed. “I mean, what the hell, Sam? You, Nate, Sackett, Laurens, Thomas Woodhull—now Selah? He’s not even a soldier, he—how the hell did he manage to get himself killed for _making tea?”_ _He drowned_ , a treacherous little voice reminded him, and Ben covered his eyes, curling his fingers against the flesh-red glare of the sun; _You’re drowning, Tallmadge. Breathe_. “Who’s next—Caleb? God. Would you have done everything the same, do you think, if you’d known how it would end for you? Do you think Selah would have? Whatever he was doing? Whatever got him killed?”

(A memory, suddenly—Sam’s funeral, or the reception, rather, Ben buzzing warm with whiskey as he stumbles inside to make room for more whiskey, and—

“Tallmadge!”

“Strong,” he greets smiling around the name. His lips feel loose and foolish, like it’s not the time for smiling but he can’t help it, not at the sight of the two people pushing through the crowd of mourners toward him. “Oh, sorry, Strong _sssss_. Thanks for coming, you guys—”

Anna just holds him: short enough to tuck beneath his chin, sturdy enough to hold him upright. “You know I love you, right?” she whispers into his shoulder, eyes redder than his, even, such that guilt makes his stomach wobble when he nods and thanks her and shrugs away. He really needs to piss. He loves them, but he _really_ needs to piss, so the guilt and discomfort twist and slosh as Selah draws him aside.

“It’s wretched. Having to take my own advice,” the man murmurs, and in his muddled state, it takes Ben a moment to understand. _Three things, Tallmadge._ “And even more wretched having to break it. Do you remember what I told you?”

“Um—let the family know you’re at their disposal, but don’t make a nuisance of yourself. Introduce yourself to his other groups of friends. And, um…”

“Only good memories. Share your own regrets if you must, so the family knows they’re not the only ones who feel they had unfinished business, but say nothing that will add to theirs. Which is why I regret having to burden you with anything else right now, but I don’t know when else—”

“Is this about Sam?” Ben fidgets, bladder screaming.

“No. Not as such. But before you leave town again, let me buy you a beer. In light of everything, and in your line of work, I think you’d be interested to hear—”

“Oh hey, is that Abe Woodhull Anna’s talking to?” Ben interrupts, pretending to look beyond Selah’s shoulder. The other man’s head whips around, and Ben makes his escape to the restroom just in time.

He spends his remaining days on leave with his family, and by the time he finds himself in America again, Anna is adrift and distraught and alone.)

If Sam had an opinion on the matter, he didn’t share it. Ben smiled, sad and thin.

“Yeah, I probably would’ve, too.”

 

\---

 

“Heaven knows the etiquette books will tiptoe around the subject as though the corpse is like to wake if they step too loud, but heed you me, dearie. When attending a funeral for your lover’s spouse, there are three things one _must_ do.”

“And you are such an expert, Mother?” muttered Edmund, but more in distraction than irritation. Hangers rattled as he pushed another section of shirts aside, head canted to prop the phone between shoulder and cheek as he scanned his closet in search of a suitable shirt.

“Well, there _was_ Lady Carlittle's service, you know. Certainly we weren’t involved at the time, the lord and I, but in our younger days…”

“ _Ugh_. Yes, yes, that’s quite enough, thank you. I’d nearly managed to _forget_.”

“…I’m sixty-five, boy. Not dead. Nor was I much older than your Anna—or _you_ —when _my_ husband was laid to rest, as you’ll recall.”

The rattling stopped. “…Yes. Yes, I know.”

Mother had never remarried. There had been offers, he knew. A few, in fact. And why shouldn’t she have, a landed lady widowed at scarcely forty-five? But _ach_ , she’d said last time he asked, waving the question away as she unstitched quires of pages from her latest rebinding project; she’d gotten too used to being beholden to nothing and no one but her bees and her horses and the dog. Sometimes, when the thought of her alone in that Edinburgh townhouse with nothing but a deerhound to look after her made him irrepressibly fearful and sad, he wished she had. At other times, when his mind wandered to that kirk on the hill, the thought made him twitch. Today, the thought of widows and remarriages and what level of deference may or may not be due to the memory of dead husbands hit rather too close to home, so he merely pursed his lips and set the phone on the armoire as he withdrew a charcoal, Cambridge-collared button-up for review.

It would do nicely with the jacket, he supposed. He hung it on the back of the door with the jacket and waistcoat and trousers, all black herringbone tweed. Very sedate, very classic, and the charcoal would be entirely appropriate for the occasion without implying the depth of … _personal_ bereavement an all-black ensemble might.

When was the last time he’d had occasion to pick out mourning clothes? Not for years. Perhaps not even for a decade. An enviable piece of fortune, perhaps, that no one that dear in his acquaintance had passed away in so long. Either that, or—to be entirely honest—a reflection of precisely how few his acquaintances were, and how held at a distance.

For heaven’s sake; it wasn’t even _his_ acquaintance he would be “mourning” now.

His scowl deepened. He was spinning his tie rack by the time he realized he’d forgotten about his phone.

“…listening attentively, I’m sure. Soaking in my wisdom. Too awestruck to interrupt. Edmund. For the lord’s sake, Edmund. I’m too old to have my remaining time wasted like this.”

“Ah—yes. Forgive me, I was … distracted. I’ve been a bit tired lately, I’m afraid.”

“Well, with a new lass in your life, I should _hope_ you’d be knackered, you’re not using the bed right otherwise.” Edmund cringed. “Oh, speaking of your Anna—don’t forget my request. Now, then. You’re listening, Edmund? Three things.”

 _Three things_ , Edmund reflected wearily a half hour later, striding down the pavement toward the shop. His phone weighed heavy in his pocket; he resisted the urge to check it yet again.

_The first: Though it will be contrary to your nature as an only child, a Hewlett, and a male of the species H. sapiens, strive as much as possible to fade into the background of the event. Particularly when speaking with the dead man’s family, dear God. I know your Anna attained permission for your attendance, but even so—do you recall, when you were just a wee thing, we signed you up for a Christmas pageant in the village? Oh, you cried your eyes out through every rehearsal, and in the end the director decided that perhaps you weren’t shepherd material after all. So you played a tree. You made a very convincing tree. I know it’s been a while, but at the service, darling, endeavor to channel your inner elm._

Ever since he learned the story behind that forgotten bar, The 723, every call and every text alert had sent a shiver of dread along his spine. Even when he bade farewell to Mother only to see a text awaiting him on the screen, there had been a moment of fear, an instinctive spike of anxiety, before he saw Anna’s name. _Come to the shop!_ it read, with no explanation. He’d sighed with disappointment and relief.

_The second: While exploring your dendritic side, however, do not forget for whom you are there. It’s not the dead man, and it’s not his parents. Anna asked you to be there because she will want someone upon whom to lean. So, again—the tree’s not bad inspiration for the role._

He wished the bastard would just call already. Just call, and meet, and have _done_ with it. Every day of anticipation sharpened the dread, and he wondered if this was how Anna felt about her husband’s service: the urge to simply get something _over_ with and put the ugliness far behind.

_And the third. Third and most crucial:_

Distracted, he let his feet carry him by rote; heard the bell jangle as he pushed open the door—

_As this will be your first time meeting them, you must make a good impression upon her friends. _

“EDDIE! Holy shit, Eddie Hew!”

_Even if all else fails, Edmund—even if you somehow manage to insult Strong’s mother and let Anna fall in the mud—this you must do. For Anna’s friends have had her heart far longer than you have, and they helped to mold it to that shape you are still learning to grasp._

“Er—yes?” stammered Edmund, retreating one instinctive step as he found himself pinned by the stares of a dozen startled strangers seated throughout the café. Far beyond them, he was vaguely aware of Anna’s familiar shape, poised behind her counter as always, and of another figure near, but everything seemed a bit of a jumble at the moment. “Present? Who…”

_Her in-laws will never love you, nor will she expect them to. But her friends?_

“Annie, you didn’t tell me you were bringin’ yer boy!”

Recognition clicked.

“Ah … Mr. Brewster,” he managed, and yes, that _was_ the unforgettable Mr. Brewster, wasn’t it, standing near Anna in the back, though he looked even wilder and less civilized than he had at the museum. As the other man began jogging toward him, Edmund held out a hand. “Such a … pleasure to see you a—”

_If her friends cannot love you, she will begin to ask herself—“How can I?”_

And the brute tackled him halfway to the ground.

“Damn, look at you, man! Good to finally meetcha, official-like!” Edmunds brains rattled as Brewster seized him by the shoulders and shook him like a terrier mauling a rat. A slap on the back sent the world spinning and might have toppled him had a leather-clad arm—rich with the aroma of cigarettes and fish—not wrapped around his shoulders and drawn him close. A wink. “Don’t believe anything she’s told you about me, Eddie, it’s every word of it lies.”

“ _Edmund_ ,” Edmund heard himself correct automatically, though his voice seemed vastly far away. Brewster patted him sympathetically on the chest.

“You sure are, Eddie. You sure are.”

“All right, Brewster, that’ll do,” Anna sighed, approaching at a normal, civilized pace with many an apologetic smile to her customers. Thank heavens DeYoung didn’t seem to be around, at least. “Down, boy. Heel. Sit. Stay.”

She must have trained him long ago, for Brewster backed down at once, though not without another wink that made Edmund feel as though a thousand jokes were soaring majestically over his head, and he the butt of every one. There was something about the man that—it wasn’t as though he were _unkempt_ , exactly; excluding a bit of mud on his shoes and an errant leaf, he seemed no worse than any other young man in this godforsaken modern age—but there was something about that gleam in his eye that reminded Edmund of a child gaping at some strange creature in the zoo.

And Brewster, Edmund suspected with dread, struck him as the sort of boy who could never resist tapping on the glass.

“Thank you,” Anna whispered, leaning up to give him a peck. He huffed in acknowledgment, not needing to ask for what. In the preceding days, Anna had done her utmost to prepare him for meeting her friends—but for _some_ things, she’d sighed whenever Brewster’s name came up, no amount of preparation would ever be enough.

“Never you mind, darling. You forget how long I’ve endured Richard’s ‘friendship’; I daresay I should be capable of surviving anyone by now.”

“Well, I sincerely hope so, because Caleb’s got it in his head that we should—”

“Caleb, who’s standing right here,” cut in the eponymous, sending Anna a glare, “ _hates_ funerals. At least, the kind of funeral where everything and everyone’s gotta be sober as a hangin’ judge, and you end up with a bunch of strangers who barely know each other trying to out-grieve each other the whole time, and—well, if you’d ever met Selah, you’d know being sour is kind of a Strong family _thing_. I’m not sayin’ people shouldn’t be _sad,_ of course there’s nothing wrong with being _sad,_ but if it were you on the bier, would you really want the people you cared about makin’ themselves extra miserable on your behalf? No laughing, no singing, no telling stories about the stupid shite you used to do? That ain’t how I’d want people to remember _me_. Reckon it ain’t what Selah would want, either, when it came down to it. He was a moody ass, but he always liked making people happy, underneath all the frowns. He wouldn’t’ve put so much of his heart into this place if he hadn’t.” A nudge at Anna. “Or into you, girlie face.”

It was … without a doubt, the most unexpectedly heartfelt and meaningful collection of words Edmund had ever heard uttered by a man who looked like he might at any moment leap into the harbor and ride away on a whale. With a tender smile, Brewster chucked his knuckles gently beneath Anna’s chin, and though she remained slotted against Edmund’s side, she laid her fingertips on Brewster’s arm in a way that made Edmund feel acutely distant and sad.

“Anyway. Point is, ever been in a bar fight, Eddie? Cause we’re getting fucking shitfaced tonight.”

 _Tap, tap, tap_ on the menagerie glass, but under Anna’s gaze, Edmund refused to be quailed. Imperiously—and very much to both Anna and Brewster’s evident delight—he sniffed. “Mr. Brewster, I am a _Scot_. Drinking and brawling are the national sports.”

Mr. Tallmadge, apparently, would be joining them as well, which granted Edmund a secret sigh of relief. Heaven knew the notion of sharing Anna’s attention with not _one_ but _two_ younger men didn’t _thrill_ him, per se, but … he wouldn’t exactly disdain having an additional buffer between Brewster and himself. Besides—from what he’d heard, he had a notion that Tallmadge’s temperament would prove much more amenable to his own. As the boy had (according to his hirsute friend) gone to the church, and as the church was (according to Anna, who groaned when she heard which tavern Caleb had in mind) reasonably on the way to the bar, it was decided that they would simply stop by said holy house and retrieve their final fellow on the way. As Anna finished up her duties and waited for the barista meant to take the next shift (late, of course, young people these days really had _no_ respect for the responsibilities of employment—though he supposed it was mercy enough that De Young had finally hired anyone at all), the gentlemen waited on the pavement and conversed.

Or, rather, Brewster versed. Edmund listened. Helplessly. With no escape.

“Good God. With the—?”

“ _Yepp_.”

“You cannot possibly be serious.”

“Hey, you think you can’t trust this face? C’mon, man. You can trust this face.”

Not since his first readings on quantum mechanics had Edmund’s brain felt so much as though it were trying to unbraid its very molecules and fold itself into planes of existence where man was never meant to tread. He blinked rapidly into the western sun as they waited, struggling to plot the scenario in his mind. “…I’m not certain that’s physically—”

“Trust me on this one, Eddie. There’s things out there in the wide wide world would rattle that ivory tower of yours to the ground.” A wink, and an elbow in the ribs that staggered him. “Bet Annie’d help ya get it back up, though, if you ask real nice.”

Edmund sputtered, flushing, and Brewster had the audacity to cackle so loud that even people in the shop turned to glance out the window at them. “Bet she already _has_ ,” the devil pressed, and so flustered was Edmund that he scarcely heard the jingling of the shop-door bell as he snapped,

“My— _ivory tower_ —and whatever Anna may or may not have to do with it—are very well none of your _damn business_ , thank you very—”

“So nice to see my boys getting along,” said Anna in a flat, humorless voice, pushing in between them from behind. “Best buddies. Bosom friends. Neither of them tormenting the other. Truly, we are off to a blessed start.”

Under Anna’s watchful eye, Brewster reined himself in, and the walk to the church proceeded in relative calm. Yet Edmund couldn’t help but notice a tension in Anna’s shoulders, an usual tightness in the curl of her fingers on his arm.

“Everything all right?” he murmured, and she bit her lip, glancing where Brewster walked up ahead.

“While you two were outside, I got a phone call,” she all but whispered, and he tensed, filling with dread, before she continued: “From Mary Woodhull.”

“Mary? What about?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t decide whether to answer before it went to voicemail. She left a message, but I—I don’t really want to listen to it right now. Do you think she could have been trying to reach _you?”_

Needlessly, he checked his phone, confirming what he already knew. “I’ve no missed calls. But whatever she wants, darling, I’m certain it’s nothing to—”

“The only thing she’d possibly be calling me about is Abraham. Which means he’s done something stupid again, and she either wants to blame me for it or beg my help. Whichever it is … Whenever Woodhulls are involved, it never ends well for me.”

A pause. Anna leaned into his shoulder with her cheek. “I guess we’ve still got that spark, Abe and I. Every time our paths cross, we burn the world down in our wake.”

 

\---

 

Ben was already starting back down the hill when a whiff of nicotine reminded him about the smoker.

The scent led him to one of the overgrown hollows on the opposite slope, near the historic Woodhull and Brewster plots. A man—tall, black, with close-shorn hair—loitered among the graves.

“Excuse me, sir,” Ben called, and the man turned his head. His eyes narrowed as he realized the smoker was half-perched on one of the majestic old chest tombs dating back to the eighteenth century. Moss had rubbed the poor stone smooth enough already; it _really_ didn’t need some guy’s ass helping the process along. With effort, Ben managed to keep a clip out of his voice. “Sorry, you probably didn’t know this, but it’s no smoking in here. I have to ask you to put that out.”

“That right? Who put you in charge?” Unperturbed, the smoker took a long, heavy drag. Ben didn’t know which felt more like a smack in the face: the lazy indifference in the man’s voice, or how languidly he reclined against the tomb—like this was _his_ kingdom and Ben no more than a gnat—as he blew another cloud of smog.

“My _father_ ,” he snapped, shoulders stiff. “The _reverend_. So just put it out, yeah?”

The click of a camera shutter. A tourist stood nearby, snapping photos of the church uphill with one of those big SLR cameras with the long lens. Auburn hair curled in tufts from beneath his Yankees hat, and beneath his jacket, leather dyed olive green, Ben could just make out the distinctive design of “I ❤ NY.”

 _This_ guy, though. The smoker. “Tourist” was a word that wanted nothing to do with him. He struck Ben as local, struck him as … familiar, almost. And there was something about his stance—the musculature of his shoulders—the catlike ease; sitting stock-still not in the manner of a broken machine but in that of a coiled spring—the cocksure expression and stance of a man who knew how to handle himself in a fight—

 _Military_ , Ben realized. He was certain of it.

The smoker didn’t speak, but tapped a bit of ash off the end of his cig and surveyed the surrounding trees as though Ben weren’t even worthy of interest. Ben forced the words out from between gritted teeth. “Look, I’m not looking for a fight, sir. But to preserve our town’s heritage, it’s important that we all play by the rules, yeah? So how about we just—”

“Jordan,” the tourist called suddenly, not even looking their way. The pitch of his voice took Ben aback, as did the accent. “Do as the gentleman says.”

“Hey, I don’t take orders from anyone, man. Especially not some daddy’s boy thinks he’s hot shit just ‘cause—”

“Do as he says,” he repeated lowly, and the smoker scowled. But he stubbed the cigarette out on the sole of his shoe.

“Apologies,” said the tourist, with careless, chipper ease, lifting the camera strap over his head as he approached. The two made a heck of a pair—he’d never have figured they were together if the redhead hadn’t spoken, and even standing next to one another now, they looked ridiculous, the one all serious and wary and the other smiling brightly beneath his silly hat. “Wouldn’t want the dead to suffer any more than they already have, now would we? The living, I believe we can all agree, suffer plenty enough for us all. I believe I’m done here anyway. Where to next, my friend?”

With grand indifference, the smoker shrugged.

“Well, that won’t do. I promised Mother I’d not return from the colonies till I’d shot everyone and everything in sight. Tell me, what _are_ the sights to see in Setauket, Mr. …?”

“Tallmadge. Try the millpond. It’s got ducks.”

“Thrilling! I’ll give them your regards.” A sudden flash blinded Ben, making him stumble back. The spots in his vision cleared to the sight of a camera lowering in front of a beaming smile and pale blue eyes. “Smile, Mr. Tallmadge! And do have a lovely day.”

 _What … the hell,_ Ben marveled as he watched them leave. Even as their figures faded into the distance, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen the smoker before. Somewhere around town, maybe. Or even on duty, if he was right about the guy being military, or at least ex-mil. Or—

 _At the tea shop?_ he thought suddenly, a vague memory of visiting Selah there, sometime, Anna working behind the counter with a girl who wrapped her hair in a scarf—but he shook the thought away.

 _Everything_ reminded him of Selah these days, after all.

Instead, he looked up the hill, following the photographer’s angle toward the church. Not a particularly impressive angle, to be honest. He’d probably barely even gotten the bell tower in the frame. All it had a good view of was one plain, whitewashed wall and a certain clump of graves near the top of the hill. Several people were milling around up there, visiting graves or snapping pics of their own, and a lone figure sat before one of the stones. His knees were folded nearly to his chest, and as he ran his hand over his hair, he smoothed off a grayish, loose-fitting cap—

Ben blinked. “Woodhull?” he called, and Abe nearly dropped his hat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe that this chapter, in a more larval form, was originally meant to be chapter 19? It also was not originally nearly this melancholy or Ben-focused, but as mentioned in that New Years post, the themes of his POV kind of became too fucking real for me recently, and a lot of rewriting happened, and yeah. I'm still not best pleased with this chapter, but it would be pointless to keep messing with it. I hope y'all found it interesting, at least!
> 
> Anyway, the good news is that chapter 23 is mostly written. In which Edmund makes Ben's acquaintance at last and the plot, in general, proceeds at its habitually glacial pace, though I'm rather excited about where it gets by the end. And if you didn't see, FYI that I've been posting **an LOA prequel fic,[My Portion Forever.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8732047/chapters/20018461)** Check it out if you want more Bobby Townsend or more insight into this universe's Culper Ring.
> 
> No show quotes this time, but still some sundry things to note:  
> \-- The historical Ben Tallmadge and Nathan Hale really were friends at Yale and really did call each other Damon and Pythias, because they were nerds.  
> \-- I've taken the names used for Nathan's family here from his real family: big bro Enoch, dad Richard, and mother Elizabeth. (Nee Strong, which, given that in the show, at least, Selah has family in Connecticut, makes me _wonder?_ I swear, colonial genealogy is like a Mobius strip.)  
>  \-- Anyone who's spent time in Boston will surely know this, but the "Mike's" that Ben mentions is a very popular Italian bakery in the North End, famously locked in an eternal war for cannoli supremacy with down-the-street rival bakery Modern. If you find yourself in Beantown, I encourage you to treat yourself to delights from both. The better to make a scientific assessment of the matter, y'know?


	23. White Hair, Silver Needle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time on Law & Order & Authori[tea]: Ben and Caleb came to town for Selah's memorial; Anna received a phone call, and Edmund was awaiting one; at the graveyard, Ben ran into a stranger, and then into a friend. This time on Law & Order & Authori[tea]: the gang goes out for drinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I blame Ben for the delay, and also the other fandoms I got into, and also myself. Mostly myself. You wouldn't believe how many alternate versions of this chapter I wrote before I finally figured out what the heck I was doing.
> 
> Baihao Yinzhen tea, also known as White Hair Silver Needle, is a much sought-after variety -- the priciest and most prized of all white teas. It gets its name from its appearance: eschewing mature leaves, this tea consists only of the very young buds, which are plucked while still unopened and feature a fine, downy fuzz.

Timing, Anna knew, was everything. Selah had taught her that.

Sixty seconds’ hesitation could prove the difference between a mug of hot water too pale even to stain parchment, or a tea so tannic it made every sip a cringe. The line between the two was finer than silk. You could try to make a science of it; Edmund, probably, would have tried to make a science of it. But in Anna’s experience, science had no proven no substitute for instinct. Proper steeping depended too much on the hardness of the water, the heat of the kettle, the personality of the leaves. The only truth she’d gleaned from all her years of trial and error was that anything left stagnant turned bitter before long.

And that was the worst thing about Setauket—for everything stagnated there.

The town resisted change like a living thing. Oh, you could build your office buildings and your factories; stock the lighthouse with bulbs rather than lanterns, tunnel a subway through the city’s very bones; but the past sprouted stubbornly up from the cracks. Skyscrapers, with all their straight, inflexible lines, tangled in the narrow meanders of streets still curving around hills long since levelled. Plaques bedecked every other building, declaring proudly about That Time Something Happened Here, Back in the Day, while loose cobblestones were still diligently tripping passersby and turning ankles three centuries after they’d first been paved.

Even Selah’s shop had always belonged more to the past than to him. Once, remodeling, they’d busted through a wall and found, amidst the brick dust, slivers of metal deeply pitted and mottled with rust. Anna had nearly swept them into the dustbin with all the other rubbish. Selah, though…

She remembered precisely the way the sun had fallen, in glowing threads, on Selah’s hair as he held the slivers up to the light. Perhaps he’d smelled money on them. He’d always had a keen eye where money was concerned. At any rate, the museum had paid a modest finder’s fee for the sewing needles, claiming they were some two hundred years old, and for weeks afterward Anna had dreamt she kept finding more and more of them and pricking her fingers till her blood polished them shiny and new. Every time she tried to use them, her embroidery wound up crooked and stained, while Mary Woodhull watched with perfect stitches and a smile that was worse than if she’d sneered.

Eventually, Anna learned to tell with the barest glance whether a tea had steeped long enough—first by the color of the water, and later by nothing more than the scent of its steam on the air. Eventually, the dreams stopped.

But still she imagined sometimes that one day she would be walking down the sidewalk, trip on one of those cobblestones, and topple headlong into one of those cracks the past always seemed to find, and what use would she and her crooked stitches be back then.

 

\---

 

“So level with me, major. You just get back in town? Or just been hiding from me all this time?”

When the sun was on his face and his mouth was pulled taut with smiling, it was easy to forget, sometimes, that Abraham Woodhull was no longer the same sweet and carefree boy Ben had grown up with. It would be tempting, to forget. That Abe had had so much ahead of him: an acceptance letter to Columbia, a sweetheart he was obviously going to marry, a guaranteed job at Whitehall once he was done with school, all laid out in a bright and shining path at his feet. A path that had veered, and twisted, and tangled up in circles and circles going nowhere, just spiraling back and forth around all the things that hurt Abe most. So the Abe who hugged him tight on that hilltop, among the graves, didn’t _look_ as though he’d wandered far from the boy Ben once knew—but that boy had never smiled so sharp as this, nor had any secrets in his eyes.

Still: Ben could forgive him that, in the end. He of all people understood, after all, what it felt to walk so unbalanced like that, as though still leaving space for a brother at his side.

“If I’d been hiding, you’d never know I was here till I’d gone. I just got in an hour ago. But I’ll be sticking around a couple days, at least, for the memorial.”

Halfway into sitting down on the grass beside Thomas’s grave, Abe frowned. Someone had left roses there recently, just beginning to wilt. “Memorial?”

“For Selah. Tomorrow? Anna didn’t—?” The change that came over Abe’s face at the sound of Anna’s name made Ben wince. “…I guess your invite got lost in the mail.”

For a long moment, Abe didn’t say anything. Just hunched in on himself, eyes distant, knees curled to his chest, before finally shaking his head.

“…Anna’s done with me, man. Our whole lives, we’ve been friends, and she’s fucking done, just like that. Over some old-money capitalist prick with a stick up his ass.”

It took a moment, but when realization hit, Ben frowned. The new boyfriend. Right.

Yeah; yeah, Anna had mentioned the new boyfriend, in the same phone call in which she’d told Ben her husband was dead.

“You two fought over … what’s his name? That lawyer she didn’t like, the one she said ruined her life?”

“Fucking—yes! Who _did_ ruin her life, for the record, and whom she absolutely did not like, not at all, Ben, till suddenly! Suddenly, she likes him _a lot_. And I’m the bad guy, of course, for bein’ just a little weirded out by that. So now she’s … gone. It’s not like those other times, the other times we fought. At least I still recognized her after those. This time, I’ve lost her for good.”

“Hewlett,” Ben remembered, answering his own question to the memory of a pale man glimpsed from a distance: a man who had paraded around the museum as though he owned the place and worn Anna on his arm as though he owned her too. Abe faked a gag, and Ben frowned. “…I truly hate to break it to you, Abe, but you are … literally married. You have been literally married for five years. At this point, do you really have any business caring who Anna—?”

“This isn’t jealousy, man, it’s not about—you know—us. It’s not that she’s with _someone_. I can handle her being with _someone_. It’s that she’s with _him_.”

“If Anna likes him, how bad can he be?”

“He’s BFFs with my _father_ , Ben. What more do I gotta say.”

Ben cringed. “…Fair point.”

Abe had enough ass left for an I-told-you-so raise of the brows, but that was about it. Mostly, he just looked tired as he slipped his beanie off, ruffling his sweat-stiff hair.

“I’m not sure if it’s me she’s punishing or Hewlett, but trust me—this is revenge on one of us. Probably _both_ of us. Two birds, one stone, yeah?” At Ben’s frown, Abe knocked their shoulders together. “Don’t look at me like that. Come on—honest opinion. What do you make of him and her?”

Honestly?

Honestly, he’d been too numb, during that first phone call, to really register anything other than that his friend was dead and so was another part of his soul. And even now, what could he really say? At the museum, all Edmund Hewlett had been to Ben was a stranger in sharp suit. In Ben’s memory, he didn’t even have a face.

He _had_ wondered. After he’d had time to think about the phone call and the 180 in Anna’s opinion of the man. When he’d suggested to Anna that she might humor the guy for a while, string him along in case he proved to have some use, she’d played the hero, played the martyr, played like she stood on such lofty moral ground—but he knew Anna. When push came to shove, she’d always been willing to do anything to survive.

So maybe she’d taken his advice after all.

Abe’s face was smug enough already, though, without telling him that.

“Honestly, Abe … This is the same song I heard from you when she and Selah got together. It was just as tiresome back then. _”_

“Well, I was right about Selah, wasn’t I? Look what he did to her!”

“Look what _you_ did, Abe.”

Pain shuttered across Abe’s face. To his credit, he looked down.

“…I know I fucked up with Anna. I know I’ve fucked up a _lot_. But I only ever did … what I thought best for the greater good. Caleb and Anna, they do whatever their gut says to do at the time. But you’re a soldier. You understand that sometimes, you have to think about the big picture, no matter what it takes. You believe me when I tell you, Ben, that I’ve always tried to do what was right?”

To that, Ben had no answer, but the shrapnel in his heart gnawed at him, worried by the hunch of Abe’s shoulders, the shadows beneath his eyes.

“…Abraham. Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, man. Everything’s great. Peachy keen.”

Ben narrowed his eyes. After a moment, Abe sighed.

“It’s nothing, it’s just … You know when you’ve been working at something for so long, you can hardly remember what your life was before it—and suddenly, the end comes in sight? And you’re sad, but excited, and relieved … But more than anything else … You’re fucking _scared_. That wake-up-sweating, bone-deep terror that here, right at the finish line, is the moment it all goes wrong, and everything you’ve worked for comes crashing down on your head. I can’t shake this feeling that it’s all about to go sideways. I … I think it already has.”

“If you’re in some kind of trouble,” Ben began—sincerely, but in the same low, soothing tone he used to assure POWs that if they simply answered him honestly, the pain would go away—“you know my dad and I would—”

“I’m just—really nervous about graduation. Leaving Columbia, getting a job, passing the Bar. I’ve still got a semester to go, but somehow, it all feels so _sudden_ , y’know?”

“...Yeah. Yeah, I bet.”

Before he could press, Abe stood, snatching up his hat. “Look, I better run before Mary flips out on me. But you and Brewster promise to get your asses over for drinks while you’re in town, all right? Be nice to have a beer with someone who ain’t my old man.”

“…Sure thing. I think Caleb and I were gonna stick pretty close to Anna till the memorial’s done with, but we’ll catch you after that.”

In the middle of adjusting his beanie, Abe hesitated. “Look, man. About Selah…”

Jaw working, hands twitching—hesitation. The kind of hesitation of a man who wanted to confess but was terrified to. In the space of that moment, Ben dared to hope that Abe would remember how long they’d known each other and how little he had to fear from Ben, and just—tell the truth.

“…About Selah. I’m sorry, and all. God knows I couldn’t stand the guy, but he was solid, and we agreed on the important things. He deserved better than he got.”

Ben considered pressing the matter, but he had enough experience with liars—and, more importantly, with Abe—to know he wouldn’t get anything. Not yet. “Yeah. He did.”

“Anyway”—and Abe turned away—“say hi to your old man for me, yeah? And … keep on eye on Annie. I’m worried about her. Men like Hewlett—men like my father—they can ruin lives, when they want to. They can do it without breaking a sweat. Hell, my dad ran her dad’s business into the ground just because he wouldn’t kiss Dad’s ass anymore, and Hewlett’s got at least as much money at his back. Anna might think she’s got nothing left to lose, but how’s he gonna react when he realizes she’s been playing him, y’know?”

“Not everyone’s as petty and vengeful as you Woodhulls, you know.”

He’d only meant it as a joke—really he had. But judging by the way Abe’s mouth twisted, maybe it hit a little too close to home.

“Fuck you, then. One way or another, though, someone’s gonna get hurt here. I didn’t want it to be her.”

 

\---

 

Later, thinking back, Ben couldn’t remember exactly what it was that damned Hewlett. Maybe it wasn’t just one moment, but the accumulation of many, watering the seed Abe had planted until it bloomed into a beautiful and noxious weed—and maybe if the circumstances had been different, if his timing had been better, if he’d lingered a little longer at Thomas’s graveside before walking inside the church—maybe it would never have bloomed at all.

After Abe left, Ben had moved some of the sunflowers from Sam’s grave to Thomas’s, to keep the wilted roses company until he could bring more. They were small, the roses, and well thorned, with jagged-cut stems uneven in length. Something about all that made him think garden rather than florist, which didn’t seem like Abe’s style … but from what he’d heard of Mary, gardening sounded like her.

He was still thinking about how Thomas deserved more flowers, and Mary more of a husband, and Abe more than this constant walking in circles and never going anywhere in life, when he got a text from Caleb saying they were at the church, looking for him, and where the hell was he? And when he walked inside through the church’s back door, it was Selah he was thinking about, then: about how he had deserved more, too, from life as well as from death. More, at any rate, than a watery grave.

So it was Selah, dying afraid and alone, that Ben was thinking of when he entered the church, and perhaps that was why the scene that greeted him took him so aback.

“Tallboy! Thank the lord, you’re just in time. Get yer ass over here and be gross with me—we could give these two a run for their money, I reckon, and I’m sick of being a third wheel.”

“We are not being _gross_ ,” drawled Anna, glaring over her shoulder at him, and the man at her side looked around with an uneasy frown. More than at her side, to be honest: her hand on his chest, his at her waist, they seemed to be the only things holding each other up from tumbling into the front pew as Anna held a phone out at arm’s length. Because what better place for a selfie with your new boyfriend, apparently, than ten feet away from the altar where you married your dead ex.

 _You haven’t even buried him yet, Anna,_ he thought, and felt like he’d been kicked as he remembered there wasn’t even anything _to_ bury after all.

As Caleb alternated between chatting with Ben and suggesting poses increasingly inappropriate for a house of God, Anna and her … boyfriend wrapped up their photoshoot with a cheek-pressed pose that left no room for Jesus at all. “Sorry,” she explained as she hugged Ben hello, pressing a firm peck to his cheek. “It’s just so pretty in here, and we’ve been trying to get a decent pic together for days.” Her grin turned sly then, and she lowered her voice to a stage whisper, hiding her mouth behind a hand. “Edmund’s mother requested proof that he’s dating an actual human person, you see.”

“Oh, for the love of—she simply wishes to know what you _look_ like,” snipped Hewlett, testily, in an accent almost as snooty as his face. With a sniff, he requisitioned the phone. “I _attempted_ a mere verbal description, but words cannot do justice, it seems, to such _limpid eyes,_ to _hair like a raven’s wing_ —”

The look Caleb gave Ben then spoke volumes. _See? Gross._

Edmund Hewlett wore Barker Black oxfords, a black-faced Movado watch, and an imperious frown that reminded Ben of the sort of officer who was always itching to write soldiers up on dress code but went to pieces in the field. If he ever misplaced that watch, he’d probably fire the maid for stealing it, only to find it beneath a couch cushion months later. Not that Anna or her _boyfriend_ had mentioned anything about a maid, but … Ben was willing to play the odds.

He looked, in short, like exactly the sort of man who’d get along famously with Richard Woodhull, and suddenly Ben couldn’t shake Abe’s words from his ears.

So, maybe it was the selfie that got them off on the wrong foot.

Maybe it was the way Hewlett introduced himself: too grave, too formal, addressing Ben as _Major Tallmadge_ as though he had the first idea what service meant. “Ah—my … condolences, by the by,” Hewlett added as they shook hands. Every word seemed to cause him pain. “It’s a … very great tragedy, and whatnot. What happened to, um. That is, I understand you and … the decedent … were quite close.”

 _Decedent_. Not in any of the dozen funerals Ben had attended had he ever heard a colder or more clinical way of saying _your dead friend_.

Quite possibly it was the way Hewlett tensed, as though preparing for impact, every time Caleb turned his attention his way, even though Caleb was acting downright civilized by Brewster standards and didn’t deserve the disdain that curled Hewlett’s lip every time he made an even slightly off-color joke. Absolutely it was not helped by the way Anna, perhaps aware of this, gave Ben a squeeze on the shoulder and Hewlett a kiss on the cheek before dragging Caleb up ahead with her as they all walked to the bar. Thus, ignoring the pleading looks from them both, she abandoned them to awkward, stiff-shouldered silence, each of them sizing the other up askance.

If nothing else, everything went to hell once they started talking about the church.

“They were married there, you know,” Ben heard himself say. He hadn’t meant to. Hewlett had offered some sort of bland pleasantry about what a “nice” place it would be for the memorial, and the words just tumbled out. “Anna and Selah. Right at that altar you probably got in the pictures for your mom.”

Hewlett’s expression slid from “awkward silence” to “visceral disgust” in about point-two seconds flat.

“…Ah. How … delightful.”

“Yeah. It was. Dad officiated, and I was best man, and we spent all day doing the whole place done up in flowers and white. Even Anna had flowers in her hair—tea roses. You know, kind of a play on words, since she was marrying into Selah’s shop.” He knew he should shut up, but it was hard not to savor the things currently happening to Hewlett’s face: how his scowl deepened and darkened, how clearly he wanted to forget that Anna had ever been married at all. “And, I mean … I’m sure you can imagine how beautiful she looked in the dress. I’ve known Anna since I was—what, five?—and in all those years, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her happier than she was that day.”

“Puns at a wedding, how quaint. Slip jokes into all his services, does your father? Can I expect a line at the memorial tomorrow about how we’re all _drowning_ in our tears?”

Ben’s breath caught. He worked his throat, struggling not to think about Selah or storms or the sea.

“…My father. Unlike some people. Has too much class to speak ill of the dead. You should come hear him on Sundays sometime, Hewlett. You might learn something.”

“Oh, no, I’ve never cared for churchgoing. To be honest, I’ve always thought it rather a waste of time—valuable insomuch as it provides the masses with a beacon of order and authority, certainly, but far more useful as social conditioning than as any sort of meaningful spiritual endeavor.”

Did Hewlett notice, Ben wondered, the cross that hung around Ben’s throat? He’d been wearing it so long, day and night, that usually even he forgot it was there. Right now, though, it burned. “My family’s been ministering here for three hundred years. Twelve generations of Tallmadges, sir, have not been wasting their time.”

Hewlett sighed a long, extraordinarily condescending sigh.

“No, no, that’s not what I … Understand. I’m rather appreciative of organized religion, at the end of the day. People need structure in their lives, and they need _something_ to tell them what to think and what to do, and heaven knows they could do much worse in attaining those things than trotting into their pews every Sunday and nodding along with whatever their minister says. But a priest is just a man, and a church is just a building, in the end. When I want connection with God, I look for Them in the spiral of a sunflower or the clockwork of a comet orbiting the Earth—not in the words of any man with the nerve to stand at a pulpit and tell me how to interpret a book I am _perfectly_ capable of reading myself.”

“So it’s not that you think it’s a scam. You just think it’s a coping mechanism for us poor plebeians too dumb to do exegeses in Greek.”

That, Hewlett didn’t comment on, but there was a particular arched-brow quality to the silence that followed that answered clearly enough. Ben’s mouth flattened.

“Anyway, you’re wrong. A church is more than walls or a roof—just like a graveyard’s more than crosses and dirt. Or why would people leave flowers there? Why would we have funerals at all? I mean, if it were your grave—if it were _Anna’s_ —would you seriously act like it was just a slab of stone?”

“But it is, major. Merely stone. Dig mine up and build a bloody fence with it, for all I care. The kirk I grew up in predates anything in this town by centuries, and I promise you that half the headstones ever planted there have already crumbled to dust. Perhaps you’re all too young here, in this country, to understand that—but give it time.”

For a few moments, they walked in silence. Ben watched Anna and Caleb up ahead, hips bumping as they chatted and strolled. “When you die, then,” he said, absently, as though remarking on how blue the sky was, how bright the sun, “I’ll make sure nobody bothers giving a damn,” and Hewlett, to his surprise, chuckled deep in his throat.

“After all the trouble planning _this_ memorial has been, I imagine Anna would fight Death itself for me before she allowed me to put her through such a trial again. Fortunately, I plan not to ask that of her for quite some time.”

Ben stopped. So did Hewlett, though half a step behind, wavering on the ball of his foot and looking back with confusion that deepened as Ben, after a moment of trying to hold it in, couldn’t help but snort. He smiled, relishing the unease in Hewlett's face.

“You seriously think she'll still be humoring you by then?”

It was immensely satisfying, not even having to raise a hand yet still making Hewlett look like he’d been slapped. Ben left him like that, turning and walking on ahead. In the corner of his eye, he could still see the church’s spire on the horizon, tugging at the shrapnel in his heart.

One of those splinters would kill him someday. He’d known that for years. Could feel them accumulating, the nightmares, the anger, the sorrows and the regrets, burrowing deeper and deeper within him, worming through flesh and pericardium and bone, until someday they pierced something vital in the spiderweb of faith and duty that had kept him on his feet this long, and all the horrors he’d buried within himself would come spilling out. All the blood, all the guilt, all the friends and comrades lost; the heat of his gun barrel and the cold of midnight desert sand; the sound, unforgettable, of men choking and gasping beneath the water, and the sound, unmistakable no matter they language they spoke, of them begging, begging for life, for death, for an end to it, for a release back into the blue-sky beautiful tranquility of a marketplace in the final instant before fire and cacophony and bleeding facedown in the dirt as he listened to his brothers scream—

And what would be left of him, without all that?

Something like Abe, maybe. A bitter and broken thing trapped in the past. But there were silver linings to being already damned. Let God decide what would become of him, after all his compromises; but let Ben do everything in his power to protect those for whom there was still hope.

 

\---

 

“CHUG! CHUG, CHUG, CHUG—holy—SHIT! _Eddie!_ _Yeah!”_ whooped Caleb, hands in the air, as Edmund slammed his glass facedown onto the stained and spotted table a full gulp ahead of Anna doing the same. Her head nearly followed it down, reeling. But it was a giddy feeling, the way her world spun, not nauseating; like lying in bed after a day on the ocean, body still drifting on the memory of the waves. And the flush in Edmund’s cheeks as he wiped foam from his mouth, from his lips, his soft flat wide and lovely lips, made her nape tingle and her fingertips long to—

A third and final _tmp_ as, on her other side, Ben finally set down his glass. The coolness of his countenance, that sliding, sidelong glare, made her fumble. Suddenly every inch of her burned with consciousness of Edmund’s arm around her waist and the way she sat slotted against his side.

She looked away. Cackling, Caleb jostled Edmund, jostling her in turn.

“Shit, guy. You ain’t look like much, but you’re a bit of a badass underneath it all, huh? I reckon any man who can out-drink our Annie has my blessing, though—wouldn’t you say, Benny boy?”

Benny boy frowned into his beer as Edmund, with a matching expression, shrugged off Caleb’s hand. Even through the gently drifting lens of liquor, Anna’s heart sank a little more at the sight.

Alas, that had been more or less the theme of the night so far. They sat crammed around a corner table in a clamoring and smog-filled bar, their elbows bumping against each other’s amid their graveyard of bottles and shot glasses and pints. As Caleb, the sole soul at the table who seemed not to notice how thick the silence had gotten—or at least, not to care—got up to fetch another round, Anna hid behind her Guinness, doing her best to look neither at Edmund nor at Ben.

The Harpoon was a cesspit, a dive bar, a working-class waterfront haunt for the rough men who worked the bay, and, all in all, one of Setauket’s most treasured institutions—one of those places that hadn’t changed since Anna was a kid and probably never would. The paint on the doorframe peeled in the exact same pattern. The jukebox in the corner was going on ten years of being out of order, while the clatter of pool balls still reigned despite the rips in the tables’ green felt. She was even pretty sure that the bouncer leaning against the doorjamb was the same one who’d checked her ID the very first time she’d come here with Caleb and his dockside friends.

Ben they’d declared too baby-faced to even try sneaking in, not to mention that he couldn’t lie without his ears turning red; whereas Abe already lied too well, even at that age, but still hadn’t hit his “growth spurt” and looked about twelve. But Anna—that crowd of sketchy, straggly young men who smelled like the sea had looked at Anna, and the roughest of them all had declared that she had “old eyes.”

So Caleb had given her his arm, and one had given her his elder sister’s old driver’s license, and she’d snuck into her first bar amid the ramshackle crowd of fishermen and stevedores Caleb had fallen in with since everybody else moved away.

Looking back, she was pretty sure the fake ID hadn’t fooled the bouncer for shit. He just hadn’t had any fucks to give. And in the years to come, as Abe grew taller and Ben’s cheeks hollowed out, the bar had become their haunt every summer and school break. She could still taste those sultry summer nights spent on the patio, watching the city lights play over the bay; long, heady, mosquito-bitten nights, thick on the skin and tongue. Their lives had been simpler then. Their friendships, too. They’d slumped against the deck rail with shins and shoulders all sticking to each other and to sand—old enough to down shots without cringing, but young enough, still, to pretend that no friction sparked when Caleb ruffled Ben’s hair or Abe’s ankle brushed against hers.

And with the unappreciated luxury of so much _time_ still sprawled out before them, they’d moaned:

_When are we gonna get out of this town?_

Sitting now around their same favorite table in the corner, Ben and Caleb looked so much like they had ten years ago that she could almost pretend they’d never left. The only thing missing was Abraham, and the only thing that did not belong was the man at her side.

Every now and again, Anna would find herself relaxing into that nostalgia, pretending she felt no friction in the air amid their group. Unashamed of the way she and Edmund draped against each other, she’d find herself grinning, reminiscing, laughing at something one of the boys had said while Edmund, smiling tightly but not unsociably, sipped his Magners and busied himself with checking his phone … But inevitably, before long, something would go awry. Caleb would get too handsy or too teasing or, memorably, trick Edmund into doing a shot of Malört, leaving Edmund coughing and sputtering as it burned his throat. Or their reminisces would stray too far into the past, too close to days defined by Selah or Abe, and she’d begin to notice the discomfort in the way Edmund stared down into his drink. Or, on the other hand, she’d curl too close to Edmund, catch him looking down at her with that soft crinkle to his eyes and be unable to stop herself from leaning up into a kiss … only to glimpse, in the corner of her eye, Ben’s mouth twitch.

Which made no sense. Caleb, she’d expected to be trouble. That was a simple matter of chemistry: Edmund was calm, clear-headed water, and Caleb one of those alkali metals water made fucking explode. But _Ben?_ The only other man she’d ever known half as noble as Edmund, as faithful, as dutiful and prim? She’d thought for certain they’d find common ground. But Ben had spent the night largely in silence, nursing his Sam Adams as though each glass were his beloved firstborn child—or as though he was determined, for some reason, to keep a clear head.

Edmund had noticed as well. His lips shifted to her neck, and then, less thrillingly, to her ear.

“Your friends,” he murmured, and she shivered at the brush of his breath, “ _despise_ me.”

“Don’t be paranoid,” she whispered, but the lie was so thin that even she winced. “They just…”

“Heeere we are, lady and gents! A _proper_ something, now, for a proper toast.”

Four tumblers plunked down before them, carried deftly in the splay of two large and callused hands. As Caleb plopped back into his chair, Anna disguised her whisper in a peck at the corner of Edmund’s mouth—a peck that became something rather more private, unexpectedly, when he turned his face just so and leaned in. Anna stiffened, and then softened … melted by the hint of fingertips at her waist … and it was not, after all, as though they were the only couple taking advantage of the bar’s dark corners. Vaguely, she was aware of Caleb jeering _GROSS_ at them, and then laughing; of Ben’s voice and Selah’s name.

 _How you holdin’ up about him, anyway?_ Caleb murmured, that soft murmur that had only ever been for Ben, and his answer was like an arrow through her:

“Not as well as _some_ people, it seems.”

Flustered, she broke the kiss. The barb was still stinging as Caleb cleared his throat, picked up his tumbler, and clambered up onto his chair.

“So! Uh. Reckon it’s time we say a few words, y’know. To absent friends.”

She could feel Edmund’s shoulders go tense. As she picked up her own drink, feeling even more reluctant for this part of the evening than she’d anticipated, she saw him checking his phone again, pointedly ignoring the sight of Caleb lifting his glass to the sky.

“Selah Strong! What a legend. First time I met ya, buddy, we got into a shoutin’ match about the finer points of—how’d you put it—‘putting my dirty fucking boots on your clean countertops,’ and you just about threw a kettle at my head. Lucky me, you settled for throwin’ me out on me arse. That’s when I knew you had spirit enough for our Annie. A rebel and a patriot and a revolutionary and a reformer—may you fist-fight forever in heaven, you beautiful, belligerent bastard, you.”

“Hear hear,” muttered Edmund unconvincingly, sipping his drink like a kid dipping his toe in a cold swimming pool. Caleb cannonballed his. Anna wavered on the diving board’s edge.

She should say something, she knew. Tomorrow, at the memorial, everyone would expect her to say something. But—

Ben raised his glass.

“A good friend. A good _man_ ,” he emphasized, and she could _hear_ the capital letter in it: a Man, paragon of Mankind, burdened with all the pseudoreligious ethical baggage that comprised the condition of being Human. “Thank you for being a brother to Sam while I was deployed, and a brother to me after he was gone.”

“ _Awww_. Wait—hey! You sayin’ I wasn’t?”

“ _You_ were off in God Knows Where, Greenland, you—”

“To,” Anna whispered, but her throat closed up after that. The boys, still sparring, didn’t seem to have heard. Only the pause in the fingers playing with the hair at the nape of her neck signaled that Edmund had. Half the things she could think to say about Selah, she realized, would leave him squirming and isolated, self-conscious of how little he belonged at this table. And the other half would sour Ben even more than he already was.

 _My life is cut in two_ , Anna thought, feeling horribly and coldly sober. Hacked clean through on the line between “before” and “after,” as though someone had sliced Selah out of her and the edges of the wound wouldn’t knit.

“He _did_ punch a customer once, though,” Caleb confided to her thoroughly flat-mouthed lover, who took a break from scrolling through his phone to look up and feign interest. He leaned further back in his chair in equal measure to how Caleb leaned forward. “A brawl in a tea shop, could ya believe it? Not that he was a bad guy or anything, Eddie, it’s just—Selah, he were just _passionate_ , y’know?”

“…Indeed.”

“Jeez, Caleb, you make it sound like—look, it’s not like it was unprovoked. The ‘customer’ was talking a lot of racist bullshit, and Abigail was working.” Anna bit her lip at the memory but said nothing. She certainly didn't tell Ben that Abby had been handling it, or that the guys had been leaving anyway, or that Selah hadn’t even cared, really, until one of them insulted _him_ —“Selah didn’t stand for that sort of thing. He was just doing what he had to do.”

“I see. Yes; I recall now in _Black_ ’s where it states that assault is, in fact, entirely legal—condoned, even!—so long as the victim is being an ass.”

“What would you have done, then?” Ben was no longer looking at the table. Ben’s stare was a blue that made her think of a flint being struck, and struck, and the kindling beginning to smoke. “Would you have done anything at all?”

“There is a middle ground, I think, between inaction and assault.”

“Even if it had been Anna they’d gone after?”

“Very seldom have I seen anything to make me think Anna so helpless that she could not speak for herself … But if it came to that, I imagine I should endeavor to remain halfway civilized nonetheless.”

“Selah didn’t see her as _helpless_ —he saw her as his _wife_.”

“Then perhaps he ought to have seen her as Anna.”

“Anna is sitting right here,” she growled into her whiskey, her voice as flat as her spirits. “And she would very much appreciate if you would both stop.”

Ben looked away with a pout so forcefully reminiscent of a bratty teenager that it sparked actual anger in her, true and bitter resentment that even after all he’d been through, he still hadn’t managed to grow up. Somehow, Caleb had become the quietest at the table, which was seldom a good sign. Their eyes met while he was in the process of stealing Ben’s drink. In that one glance, they shared the unique camaraderie of two humans trying their damnedest to melt into the floor.

“He was still,” Ben couldn’t resist adding after a moment, looking right in Edmund’s eyes, “the best man I man ever knew.”

And that did it. Anna’s humiliation sharpened to actual, soul-shriving panic as Edmund stood.

“Selah Strong.” Like the world’s most sarcastic Hamlet, he raised his glass. “Alas, I never had the _honor_ —of brotherhood, or fisticuffs, or any of the other pleasures of his company, which were manifold, I’m sure. But I _do_ wish to recognize him nonetheless.”

“ _Edmund_ —” Anna heard herself hiss, but the bar was crowded, the crowd loud—

“To Selah, rabble-rouser and failed entrepreneur! Who ran his business into the ground; who left his wife to pick up the pieces; who had not even the courtesy to leave a note on a bloody napkin when he abandoned her. Who continues, even from the bottom of the ocean, to impose upon her happiness. That any of us should even dream of being so _good_ a man. And yet—”

This just as the screech of Ben’s chair across the floor threatened to drown him out; Anna, too, leapt to her feet. Edmund held up a finger, and they froze.

“And yet, I thank him. From the truest depths of my heart. For had Selah not failed so miserably at all he attempted, how much poorer would my own life be.”

He kept his eyes on Ben as he drank down his whiskey, and Anna didn’t know which hurt more: that he would use her as a prop in a speech yet not bother to look at her, or that she’d almost allowed herself to forget that he could look like that, all haughty disdain and arrogance in the quirk of his mouth. Maybe that was why she didn’t even try to stop him when he walked away from the table, muttering something about getting some air.

The silence that followed was only broken, at length, by Caleb bursting into the rib-breaking, face-in-hands laughter that meant he was so overwhelmed with secondhand embarrassment that the only way his brain could cope with such a foreign feeling was to utterly shut down. He thunked his face directly onto the tabletop and laugh-sobbed into spilt beer. But Anna didn’t even look at him, and nor did Ben.

“What the hell is your problem?” she demanded at the same time he said, “What were you thinking, bringing him along?”

Anna sucked in air but said nothing. Even unspoken, her defenses—that she liked him, that she wanted her friends to like him, that she would’ve felt cruel leaving him alone—sounded childish and thin. Ben pressed on.

“Tonight was supposed to be about Selah. Selah’s life. Selah’s memory. The people who loved Selah. _Selah_ , Anna, you remember Selah, right?”

“Don’t act like I don’t know you. Don’t act like I can’t tell when there’s something you’re trying to hide. What has he ever done to you to make you act like you can’t even risk getting drunk?”

“It’s not me I’m worried about.”

“And what could I possibly have to worry about?” When he didn’t answer—merely shook his head, and sat—Anna’s fists clenched. “You know nothing about him. You know nothing about—how much he’s done. For me, for Selah—funding the memorial, getting the will and insurance sorted, paying my … paying my damn bills. I had nothing, and he … How can you sit there and act like you’re looking out for me when you left me here alone?”

Some of the anger drained from Ben’s eyes. It was hard to stay mad when he looked up at her with that sad Golden Retriever face.

“…I’m sorry for not coming sooner. And I. I know it was my suggestion in the first place, and I’m glad to hear you’ve been getting so much use out of him so far. But I’m starting to think he might be more dangerous than I thought he was, so I just need you to be careful, okay?”

“Suggestion?”

“Yeah. What I said before, at the museum. That a man like Hewlett could take care of you, remember?”

She didn’t want to. Had tried, consciously and determinedly, to forget, as though even leaving the idea in her brain put it in danger of taking root. But every time she’d relented to his offerings and let Edmund pay for even the slightest thing, she’d been unable to push away Ben’s voice:

_There’s opportunity here, if you’re willing to look._

“You,” she breathed. Her fingernails had curled into her palm, but she hardly noticed. Everything felt too heavy and too numb. “You. And Abe. You both think … so little of me. You see the way I look at him and still honestly think it’s a scam.”

“We think the _world_ of you, Anna. That’s why we’re so scared of you getting hurt.”

She barely had the energy to look at the only potential ally she had left. “Caleb. You, too?”

“Aw, Christ on a pony, Annie, don’t drag me into this,” he moaned into the tabletop. One cheek smushed over just enough to let him drag his hands down his face. “I _like_ Eddie! I’m _happy_ for ya, gettin’ back in the game so quick! It’s just, y’know…”

The vague waggle of his hand suggested no further explanation was necessary. Her unflinching stare replied that no, thank you, it very much was.

Caleb sighed.

“…Well, it’s like I told you over the phone, innit? Never would’ve seen it coming, you and him. I mean, we've known each other how long, Annie? I know you, and I know the kinda guys you get along with, and Hew boy, he’s … The two of you, it ain’t…” Caleb fumbled at the air as though to scatter his own words away. “Look, point is … I ain’t one to judge. And I get it. We all been on the rebound before, we all like a little novelty now and then—for a while, at least. No big deal whether or not it lasts.”

There was gray in Caleb’s beard. Not much, but still, she wondered how she hadn’t noticed before. And the seams on his trusty leather jacket were fraying, and Ben had lines on his forehead that hadn’t been there last year. It seemed to her suddenly that they did not look anything like they had ten years ago after all.

“He would never hurt me,” she told them, very quietly. “He would never lie to me. He’s the only man yet who never has.”

She left.

The press of the crowd choked her. She felt the smear of every stranger’s skin against hers as she pushed her way toward the back door, toward the patio that overlooked the sea wall and the beach. Cigarette smoke burned her throat and stung her eyes, making her head pound with the pressure of choking back tears. Why was it that Caleb’s knowing glances and fumbling support hurt so much more than Ben’s accusations? Why couldn’t she find the words that would make them understand? Perhaps because she shouldn’t have to; she should only need the way she smiled at him, the way he held her, the way they kissed—but why, then, when she reached for the words to quantify what she felt when those hazel eyes met hers, did all the options in Anna’s lexicon wobble, and blur together, and recede shyly from her grasp, unwilling to commit themselves to such a sensation—not even such a short and simple syllable as “love”?

Even in the safety of her head, she couldn’t say it; she shied away from the sight of it, too intimately acquainted with how it could hurt. She pushed through the patio door, stepping into a bloom of warm and sultry night—

And stopped. Her heart fluttered, and then ached. And perhaps she still wasn’t ready to look that feeling in the eye, but she knew that it belonged entirely to the sight of Edmund leaning on the deck rail, watching the last ribbons of sunset on the sea.

He shivered when she touched his elbow. The way an animal shivers, a single ripple racing down its hide. And when she pressed her face to his shoulder, he let his shoulders slump.

“It looked so endless from the airplane.” He spoke as softly as he did in the evenings, when only a few inches of pillow separated them, and with no trace of the emotion of only minutes before. “The ocean. Sometimes the clouds would thin and I could just glimpse it below, like a sheet of pavement going on and on. Halfway through, I began to believe there was no other shore at all—that America was nothing more than a fairy tale told to children, and we would spend eternity trapped up there, forever scrolling over gray.”

He didn’t apologize. Nor did she ask. Five minutes ago, she’d wanted to smack that glass of whiskey out of his hand and ask him, if he thought Selah so terrible, how stupid he must think her to have loved him; but now … Now, she simply let her weary head rest into the hollow of his upper back.

“Have you ever thought of leaving all this behind? Going … home?”

“…Constantly, in the early days. Less so of late.” His hands drew hers around in front of himself, where he seemed to examine them, as though he didn’t see them every day. “Yet still I find myself acutely reminded, some days, that this is not my world, no matter how I delude myself into thinking it could be.”

He squeezed her fingers. “Oh, Anna, how I wish I could—you would love it there, I know. Our estate, when the heather’s in bloom. And Edinburgh, you are so very _like_ Edinburgh, so very … The stronghold of the Enlightenment, Anna. The Athens of the North. Classroom to Darwin and Lister and Hume. And yet there’s a wildness to it, a beautiful darkness that Reason never quite tamed. You can feel it in the stones and smell it on the Water of Leith. Small wonder so many speak of seeing black dogs in Greyfriars or ghosts in the catacombs beneath the Castle Rock, when you remember that even those Enlightenment doctors paid for their knowledge with robbery and blood.”

Not for the first time, hearing him speak of the wide world he’d wandered made her feel like little more than a speck of dust. How small, how young and bland Setauket must seem to him. How silly he’d think her if he knew what a fuss she’d made about those needles in the tea shop, all the dreams and the blood.

“You sound as though you loved it.”

“Ha. Yes.”

“…So why leave?”

She could imagine his jaw working. “…I suppose it was haunted for me as well.” He released her hands. “Still, I wish I could you show you. Or perhaps we could simply leave and find some new place, you and I, some place neither of us have ever set foot in before. Somewhere with no ghosts.”

“We could,” she said, and then, with sudden fury: “We _should_. Nothing stays good in Setauket for long.”

Edmund turned, the motion bringing their faces terribly close. The look he gave her then complicated the already complex planes of his face into language she couldn’t parse. She wanted to take his jaw in her hands, to run her thumbs over his cheekbones and smooth it all back into a shape she knew. His hands rose to her jaw instead, and she let her eyes fall shut, waiting for the kiss.

Instead, his fingers tensed. When she opened her eyes, she caught half a second in which his gaze was fixed over her head and his expression grim.

Just as quickly, he was back, hitching a thin smile into place.

“Why don’t you go back in, love. Catch up with your friends. I’ll be along.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes yes, quite—quite right. I just, ah. A few more moments to swallow my pride, please. Before I have to make my apologies to Tallmadge.”

“…Edmund…”

He did kiss her, then; firmly, but without his full attention, even when she caught his lip between her teeth. A nip made him hiss, and just for a moment, he sank into it, dragging a hand through her hair and jerking her close. His growing boldness these days thrilled her, made her toes curl in her boots—his touch still reverent, but no longer so careful as he had once been, no longer handling her as though she might flee or shatter if he let his teeth scrape her shoulder while they fucked. The hand at her scalp twisted just enough to spike pleasure with pain. As their ankles tangled and the curve of his leg behind her knee became the only thing keeping her upright, she let her palms relearn the contour of his jaw.

But only for a moment. He let her go with a final, gentle bite, then pressed his lips to her forehead and held them there while, for a long moment, they simply stood. "I'll be along," he murmured again eventually, and she nodded, eyes closed. Her lips were still tingling by the time she reached the door.

Where she folded herself into a shadow and stopped.

Simply to admire him, she told herself. Simply because the shape of him against the ocean was a thing she could study for years. There could be no other reason to watch him, because he would never tell her he was all right if he were not.

But when, a few moments later, Edmund crossed to the stairs at the side of the deck and vanished out of view, she followed a safe distance behind.

Walking down to the beach felt like sinking underwater. With each step down the narrow staircase, she sank further below the tavern’s noise and lights; with each step, the world receded, and some place deep and intimate and far vaster than herself welled up. Night closed over her head in a hush as her feet touched sand. She stayed close to the sea wall as she scanned the sea strand’s silver sweep. But the only movement was the line of moonlight twining back and forth along the edge of the surf as it rushed in and out and in again, and the only other shadows she could see belonged to couples entwined. Anna shivered in the stiff breeze off the ocean, searching for a familiar shape.

She heard him before she saw him.

“…not appreciate theatrics. Nor _spying_ upon…”

The wind carried his voice to her and then drowned it in the breath of a breaking wave. She turned back toward the patio, to the place where it overhung the wall: a shelter supported by pylons, and full of black.

“…of the dark, Hewlett? Thought it rather cozy…”

Her feet moved forward, half against her will.

“… _mean_ is, you could simply have rung.”

In the shadows up against the wall, she could just make out two men. One was a shape she had grown used to seeing in darkness, though in the bedroom, in the night, he seldom held his shoulders so stiff. But the other—

“…not the sort of conversation,” he said, that tall stretched man, in a tenor delicate and distinct. Recognition shivered over her like cold silk. “I care to have over the phone.”

The last time she’d heard that voice, she’d been standing in a doorway in South Jersey, raw in her new widowhood and determined to let the mystery that had been her husband rest. The last time she’d spoken about its owner, Edmund had promised that he would let the matter rest, too.

He’d promised her.

“…here on _your_ request, besides. So. What do you have for me, Hewlett?”

“…A trade. One offering. One ultimatum. And then, Simcoe, I am done.”

“…‘Done.’”

“ _Done_. I grow weary of this game.”

She could still turn around. She could walk back up those stairs, gasp as she broke through the surface into noise and cigarette smoke and light, go back to Ben and Caleb and remind herself that things half-seen in shadow were seldom half as sinister as they first appeared. For hadn’t she, as a girl swimming in the bay, thought she’d seen all _sorts_ of monsters down there? Dragons and mermaids and long-dead pirate kings? But they had only been rubbish and lagan made strange by the deep. She should know better than to waste her time looking at things like that.

But she was still that girl who’d dived down to the seafloor with open eyes; so she flattened her back against a pylon and stayed.

“I have done everything, Simcoe, everything that you asked. I have reviewed the Strongs’ business accounts, both before Selah’s disappearance and after; combed through his contracts, his properties, his phone records, his will; physically examined—every inch, I daresay, of his former business and his former home. I’ve conferred with my colleagues in law as well as in law enforcement, even—even prised what I could from Mrs. Strong without arousing her suspicions. Far and away the most nefarious deed I have yet uncovered is that they have both, alas, occasionally taken liberties on their taxes. But nowhere have I found anything conclusively linking either Strong to your precious Culpers. If Selah was indeed involved, he covered his tracks well enough that any proof of it sank with him. That, or your suspicions are simply wrong. Either way … your threats begin to ring hollow, sir.

“As such, I see nothing compelling me to continue this farce. You will cease all inquiries into An—into the Strongs—living or dead—make no further—demands, of me, or of her, in any way—or I shall have no choice but to—”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Hewlett. No no, do go on, I’m on the edge of my seat. You’ll—file a strongly worded complaint? I didn’t think to wear boots tonight, but consider me shaking in them nonetheless. Bravado doesn’t become you. Get to the trade.”

“…Selah Strong was not a Culper. But. As a courtesy. I will provide you proof of who is.”

The silence that followed started as a full stop, defiant and proud. The moments stretched it into ellipses. Though she didn’t understand the silence, it settled in her belly and curdled there nonetheless. When Simcoe finally spoke, all teasing was gone from his voice.

“ _Who_.”

“Not until I have your assurance that—”

“You’ll have your _assurance_ when I have your _proof_. All of it. Everything you’ve collected, _now_.”

“Well, I don’t have it _on_ me! If you had _rung_ , I could have—” Movement: a shifting of sand. “What are … Don’t—”

“—think I take this lightly? Think I suffer to be threatened lightly? You dare call me out to this pisswater town with nothing to show for it but—”

“—dare call me out to this pisswater town with nothing but—”

“—dare _touch_ —ah!”

And then the thud, and Anna whirled.

Any words that may have followed drowned in the breaking of the waves and the pounding of her heart. But she could see, where the moonlight fell in the cracks, enough to piece the puzzle together: fists tangled in a collar, strong arms shoving a body against the wall, a foot scrabbling for purchase, for escape. Simcoe’s elbow moved. In the half second it took him to reach inside his jacket, she had time enough to think of shouting—think of running—think of throwing herself between them and showing the bastard just how useful a sturdy pair of dick-kicking boots could be—time enough for a dozen options to crash through her brain, and no time to act on any of them. Not while her heart was busy stuttering at the sight of that helplessly scrabbling foot.

And when the Ranger’s hand came out of his coat again, the metal caught the moonlight and threaded it bright along the dagger’s edge: a silver needle with its point at Edmund’s throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Please don't kill me for this chapter with no fluff and no smut, just everybody being REAL DUMB. Or, if you do want to kill me, leave a comment telling me how! Y'all know I love hearing from y'all. Would you believe there was a version of this chapter that had Reverend Tallmadge in it? And one in which Ben and Edmund's church argument was even longer and less tolerable? There was even like four full pages of Anna and Edmund flirting via a debate about Plato vs. Aristotle. The eternal question in every romance!
> 
> Many thanks to [MercuryGray](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray) and [tvsn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tvsn) for unwittingly providing inspiration for the bar scene. Merc suggested AGES ago that Caleb seemed like he would make Edmund do malort shots, and I just couldn't pass that up. Hewlett drinking Magners, meanwhile, is a little shout-out to [Hide and Seek](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6711946/chapters/15348808), which I cannot recommend enough.
> 
> Show quotes: "Don't act like I don't know you" from 3.05; "Have you ever thought of leaving all this behind? Going home?" from 3.02; and I can't remember exactly which episode Caleb said "Christ on a pony" in, but by gosh, he said it.


End file.
